Rolling Stone USA - June 2024

JUNE 2024
ISSUE 1388
SPECIAL REPORT
AMERICA
THE AFTER ‘ROE’
NONSTOP DRAKE VS.
THE WORLD
HUSTLE OF
KAYTRANADA
CARDI B DANCE MUSIC’S LOW-KEY LEGEND
ATTACK OF
THE KILLER
WHALES
PLUS
REMI
WOLF
JANE
FONDA
CHARLI KID ROCK’S
XCX TWISTED
ST. VINCENT AMERICAN
JOURNEY
THE ONE
AND ONLY
George Harrison plays his hand-painted
“Rocky” Stratocaster during The Beatles’
Let It Be sessions at Abbey Road.
Forever Ahead Of Its Time
©2024 Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. All Rights Reserved. ©1969 Paul McCartney / Photographer: Linda McCartney. Under exclusive license to Linda Enterprises Ltd.
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Contents ISSUE 1388
‘ALL THE NEWS
THAT FITS’
Pride
NowIn music, film, sports,
and more, these LGBTQ+
talents are doing bold
and necessary work
Dance Music’s
42 Low-Key Legend
Kaytranada has shifted the
sound of pop, even if he’s too
humble to admit it. p. 50
By Jeff Ihaza
Can’t Knock
Cardi B’s Flipping the
Hustle Script in Horror
Amid the pressures of fame Auteur Jane Schoenbrun is
and motherhood, she’s set helping to redefine the pop
on proving her greatness. culture they love. p. 56
By Mankaprr Conteh By Brenna Ehrlich
A New Kind of
60 Power Couple
OUTFIT BY SAINT LAURENT. JEWELRY: BERNARD JAMES, MARTINE ALI, MM6 MAISON MARGIELA.
Celebrating queer love

stories through photography
and interviews. p. 58
The Mad Scientist By Hannah Murphy Winter
and the Killer
Whales The Fearless
Renaud de Stephanis won’t
Trans Pro Surfer
rest until he stops the orcas How Sasha Jane Lowerson
sinking sailing vessels. is making the sport
By Tomas Weber more inclusive. p. 59
By Miles Klee
66 “I always used to be very shy in

the studio. It took me a while.”
KAYTRANADA
Devil With a Cause

Kid Rock was once America’s
favorite hard-partying rock star.
Then he went die-hard MAGA.
What the hell happened?
By David Peisner
PHOTOGRAPH BY Xavier Scott Marshall

Contents
1 9 6 2 –2 0 2 4
Steve Albini
Few people did more to define the sound
of rock from the 1980s onward than Steve
Albini, the legendary musician, producer,
and engineer who died of a heart attack May 7
at just 61 years old. His radical simplicity in the
studio — working with Pixies, Nirvana, PJ Harvey, and
countless others — was as legendary as his scathing
anti-commercial stance and his fierce commitment to
artistic integrity. He and his noise will be missed.
The Mix 18 Why Is Everyone

Beefing With
Drake?
National
Affairs
73
13 Remi Wolf’s World From Kendrick Lamar and
in Full Color Rick Ross to Future and
Metro Boomin, it feels like SPECIAL REPORT
She followed her own beat
to become an alt-pop star, everyone and their uncle 30 Alabama’s War
and she’s going even is fed up with Drizzy. on Women
BY JEFF IHAZA
bigger on her second LP. Alabamians are learning
BY LARISHA PAUL the true cost of the push
20 Jane Fonda for fetal personhood.
15 Cutting-Edge Takes the Climate BY TESSA STUART
Sound and Vision Fight to D.C.

Inside the San Francisco The actress and activist 36 Abortion Clinic
Museum of Modern Art’s on the do-or-die election, Defenders 40 After ‘Dobbs’: 75 Arooj Aftab
new exhibit. the threat of fossil fuels, As violence against By the Numbers Dreams Big
BY ANDY GREENE and finding purpose. abortion providers rises, Reproductive rights in A visionary Pakistani singer
FROM TOP: PAUL NATKIN/GETTY IMAGES; HARLEY WEIR; © MICKEY WELSH/USA TODAY NETWORK
BY CHARISMA MADARANG they’re standing firm. America have changed and composer keeps many
16 Kate Hudson’s BY CT JONES dramatically since 2022. traditions moving forward
Rock & Roll Soul 22 A New Side of BY HANNAH MURPHY WINTER on her brilliant new album.
It took a long time for her Talking Heads 38 Life as an BY BRENNA EHRLICH
to get over her fears and How an all-star group of Abortion Doula 41 Rebranding Anti-
make a debut album. young, eclectic musicians Ash Williams is fighting to Abortion Laws
BY BRIAN HIATT reinterpreted the Stop make access easier in the Their abortion legislation is
Making Sense soundtrack. South after the fall of Roe. costing them at the ballot,
THE BREAKDOWN BY DAVID BROWNE BY MEAGAN JORDAN so Republicans are trying On the Cover
17 The Making of sneaky new tactics to put Cardi B photographed in
Willow’s Angstiest 26 Dickey Betts: The unpopular policies in place. Los Angeles on March 28, 2024,
Song Ever Last Ramblin’ Man BY JESSICA VALENTI by Adrienne Raquel.
The Allman Brothers Band’s Photography direction by Emma Reeves.
How the singer-songwriter Produced by Xavier Hamel. Styling by Kollin
guitarist made Southern
channeled her anxieties
into the nervy “Run!” rock beautiful, but drama
was always nearby.
Reviews Carter at the Wall Group. Hair by Tokyo Stylez
at Chris Aaron Management. Makeup by Erika
La’ Pearl at GKG Management LLC. Manicure
BY LARISHA PAUL
by Coca Michelle. Tailoring by Ror Rodriguez.
& CAITLIN WHITE BY DAVID BROWNE
Music Production assistance by MiaBella Chavez
and Elijah Chandler. Lighting director:
Q&A 73 Charli XCX Sebastian Johnson. Photographic assistance
by Lance Williams. Digital technician: Renee
28 St. Vincent With Brat, the avant-pop Dodge. Styling assistance by Juan Ortiz,
Departments
30
The rock iconoclast on rebel delivers a wild, Posh McKoy, and Louis Battistelli. Location:
Milk Studios. Postproduction: Picturehouse
Contributors 9 jamming with herself confessional album that
+ the Smalldarkroom. Outfit by Tanja Vidic.
Opening Act 10 and the power of love. never loses its energy. Rings by Vitaly and YFS Designs. Earrings by
Last Word 82 BY BRIAN HIATT BY BRITTANY SPANOS Paumé Los Angeles.
6 | Rolling Stone | June 2024

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8| Rolling Stone | June 2024

Contributors
COVER STORY
Landing Major Moves With Cardi B

Adrienne Raquel
Photographer
Photographer Adrienne Raquel grew
up saving photos of the powerful
Black women who filled the pages
of magazines like Vibe, Essence, and
Ebony in the Nineties and late 2000s
— what she calls the “golden era of
pop culture.” Now, she’s creating
her own pop-culture legacy: For the Signature Art Made
June issue of Rolling Stone, Raquel From Scratch
captured the fearless, ever-evolving
spirit of Afro-Latina rapper Cardi B. Mark Summers’ illustrations are featured
The superstar from the Bronx com- in Last Word every month
mands the cover, appearing in a bold
S I N C E 2 0 1 6, award-winning illustrator Mark
stance with wind-whipped, dip-dyed
Summers has been creating the scratch-
green hair and a neon-green netted
board caricatures featured on Rolling Stone’s
bodysuit to match. Her pose reflects
Last Word page, a series of reflective,
strength and confidence, and it’s a
career-spanning interviews with artists and
cinematic moment that happened
celebrities that close each issue. A native of
right when Cardi was dancing to
Canada, Summers began his professional
music on the set of the photo shoot.
career in 1978 while studying at the Ontario
“This shot happened so organically,”
College of Art. That’s when he stumbled onto
Raquel explains. “It really shows
his signature scratchboard technique, which
Cardi in her element.” It’s not the New
is a rare, hand-drawn way of creating images
York-based photographer’s first time
by scratching ink off of a sheet. Since then,
working with larger-than-life celebri-
he’s completed major projects, including
ties: She’s photographed Megan Thee
designing icons of famous literary voices
Stallion, Doja Cat, and Travis Scott for
that line the walls of Barnes & Noble. Over
various publications. Raquel also shot
the past near-decade, Summers has drawn
Michael B. Jordan for the March 2023
more than 125 illustrations for Rolling Stone.
cover of Rolling Stone.
His favorite might be his sketch of John
Prine, which he calls “one of my best draw-
ings.” (Prine’s wife loved the image so much
she wanted to buy it.) He hopes he can one
day draw Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell,
but he’s honored that he’s contributed to
Chronicling Examining Speaking Out the magazine for so long. “To actually be
Queer Love the Fallout in Post-’Roe’ in Rolling Stone every single month, it’s an
unbelievable feather in your cap,” he says.
and Intimacy of ‘Dobbs’ America
Summers’
first Last Word
illustration
was of Dan
Auerbach
in January
2016.
SHAWN SUMMERS; BILLIE WINTER; GRIFFIN LOTZ; SYLVIE ROSOKOFF
FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: COURTESY OF ADRIENNE RAQUEL;
Billie Winter and Tessa Stuart Jessica Valenti

Hannah Murphy Winter Senior Writer Writer and Activist
Photographer and Author Tessa Stuart has been covering Jessica Valenti started her
Hannah Murphy Winter and Billie politics for Rolling Stone since newsletter, “Abortion, Every
Winter, the brains behind the 2015. In 2022, she returned from Day,” with the goal of providing
new book Queer Power Couples: maternity leave one day before “a little bit of order to the chaos”
On Love and Possibility (p. 58), Roe v. Wade was overturned. in post-Roe America. The project
are a queer power couple in Since then, she says, “the soon became Valenti’s upcom-
their own right, and they met primary focus of my work has ing book, Abortion: Our Bodies,
while working at Rolling Stone. been the fallout of the Dobbs Their Lies, and the Truths We
“Our minds work really differ- decision.” Her piece on the right- Use to Win, out this fall. “I want
ently, but we have very similar wing push for fetal personhood people to understand that what
tastes,” Winter says. Murphy (p. 30) is a close examination of is happening is not just about
Winter couldn’t agree more: “We the terrifying repercussions of abortion,” she says, “it’s about
are a really great creative team.” abortion bans. democracy.”
June 2024 | Rolling Stone |9

Opening Act
PinkPantheress’
Pop Coronation
L I K E A N Y G O O D pop princess, PinkPantheress
doesn’t take the love of her fans for granted.
On a recent tour stop in Brooklyn, she spent
ample time acknowledging her longtime
listeners, and gave a special shout-out to the
young audience members attending their
first concert. “It was such a nice thing to hear,”
she says. “I just hope I gave a good first-
concert experience!” Toward the night’s end,
both Kelela and Ice Spice made appearances,
before a confetti shower aptly closed out
the show. “It was such a perfect time to have
Ice in her home city — the reaction everyone
had shows that she’s really that gyal,”
PinkPantheress says. “Kelela was honestly
next-level, her live vocals are insane. Sharing
the stage with someone I deeply admire soni-
cally was legendary.” JEFF IHAZA
PinkPantheress
backstage at Brooklyn
Paramount in April
10 | Rolling Stone |BY

PHOTOGRAPH Emma
Month Drew Berson
20xx
Month
June 2024
20xx | Rolling Stone | 11
TheMix
WHAT’S NEW, WHAT’S NEXT, WHAT’S NUTS
Remi Wolf’s
World, in
Full Color
She followed her own beat to
become an alt-pop star, and she’s
going even bigger this time
PHOTOGRAPHS BY Nedda Afsari Rolling Stone | 13

The Mix
When Wolf was growing up in California,

her mom often played Prince and other gi-
ants of Eighties pop. Her father, meanwhile,
leaned toward acts like AC/DC and Guns N’
Roses. The first album she picked out for her-
self was Lindsay Lohan’s 2004 debut, Speak.
Wolf took a newly soulful approach to Big
Ideas, which was largely recorded with vin-
tage equipment at Diamond Mine and Elec-
tric Lady Studios in New York. There’s a
horn section on the single “Cinderella,” plus
the same Rhodes piano that Stevie Wonder
played in the Seventies. “Soup” and “Toro”
are pure synth-funk magic, while the sensory
detailing within “Motorcycle” and “Cherries
and Cream” is visceral — all burning rubber,
chlorine, and tangerines. Wolf doesn’t just
want you to hear her world. She wants you
to taste, touch, and smell it, too. “I am truly
trying to describe what I was experiencing,”
she says. “We live in a world where we’re eat-
ing and kissing and touching and smelling.”
Her songs usually take shape, at least on
paper, over the course of a few hours. The
events that inspire them tend to be much
longer. “I try to not paint any pictures that
are at all far from the truth,” Wolf says. “In
that way, I don’t feel like I’m directing the
characters. I feel like the characters are di-
Wolf noticed some signs of how all the at- FAST FACTS recting me, and the people in my life are
REMI WOLF tention was changing her in 2022, and she influencing what I do, what I write about,
KENNY’S TEARS
R
didn’t like what she saw. “I went through this where I’m hanging out.”
Wolf sent the lyrics
EMI WOLF’S EYES are scanning big period where I had so much anxiety,” she to her new album’s On “Alone in Miami,” Wolf narrates a real-
the immediate area surrounding recalls. “I couldn’t leave my house. I hated closing track to pro- life solo trip to Art Basel, where she was invit-
the metal table we’ve claimed on seeing anybody I knew. I just deeply was like, ducer Kenny Beats ed to attend a Playboy party. “It’s like there’s
a side street in New York’s China- ‘I can’t handle the thought of people using “at five in the morn- cocaine everywhere, and I’m out there meet-
ing, or something. ing people that I’ve never met before and
town. “Fuck, there’s no wood,” she says, me or wanting something from me.’ ” (Keep-
He woke up and was
swiveling her head around once more being a tightknit group of friends has helped making new friends,” she says. “But it’s all
like, ‘I’m crying, this
fore finding what she’s looking for. About six minimize that problem, she says.) is so beautiful.’ ” under this kind of psychotic, manic, cocaine
feet away, outside of a barber shop, sit two Big Ideas sees the return of producer Jared fever dream.” Wolf has been partying since
JAZZ AND JAVA
wooden chairs — and, as she sees it, the key Solomon, whom she’s known since she was she was 18, and feels as though she’s mostly
Her favorite way of
to continuing her streak of good luck, or at 15. Her drummer Conor Malloy is another finding new tunes gotten it out of her system. “There’s still a
least warding off any potential bad fortune. main character in the cast of her life. They right now: Shazam- beast inside me that wants to rage, but it’s
“I’ve developed a knocking-on-wood tic,” she met while she was attending the USC Thorn- ing the Brazilian jazz more tame,” she says with a laugh.
LIDOW ARCHIVE. NECKLACE AND ANKLET BY PETIT MOMENTS. EARRINGS BY DAUPHINETTE. BOW BY PIPEN COLORENA.
explains after jogging over to double-tap her ton School of Music and living in a “cockroach- music at her local Much of her debut album circled the
GORDON YOULD. PHOTOGRAPHED AT CHERRY SODA STUDIOS. PREVIOUS PAGE: BODYSUIT BY PALACE COSTUMES.
SHOES BY BRANDON BLACKWOOD NYC. SCARF BY UR GF. THIS PAGE: BODYSUIT BY PALACE COSTUMES. SHOES BY
PARADIS AGENCY USING ORIBE. MAKEUP BY FRANCIE TOMALONIS AT THE VISIONARIES USING SHISEIDO. GAFFER:
PRODUCED BY MICHAEL ZUMAYA. STYLED BY JARED ELLNER AT A-FRAME AGENCY. HAIR BY ANTOINE MARTINEZ AT
fist against the seat. “Another friend of mine ridden” house with nearly a dozen people in coffee shop. boundaries of sobriety, particularly from al-
has it. Maybe I caught it from him.” the mid-2010s. Wolf holds a particular fond- STAY HYDRATED cohol. Those lines are still blurry for her,
Wolf, 28, has too many stars aligning at this ness for the people who knew her during She’s trying to drink especially in social settings. “I hate feeling
moment to take any chances. A few weeks that time, when the parties she threw and more water, with like I’m somewhere and I cannot participate
the help of a Hydro
after we talk in March, she will embark on a the songs she penned alone in her room in what is happening,” Wolf says. “There’s
Flask: “It looks like a
two-month tour opening for Olivia Rodrigo in were more instrumental to her education Stanley, but it’s not.
times when I drink and I feel like shit. There’s
Europe, following up recent stints with Par- than her actual coursework. But it is pink and times when I’m sober and I feel like shit. I’m
amore and Lorde. Then comes the big one — “I was a bad student, and I didn’t listen or purple, and I drink trying to figure out how to not feel like shit
or rather, Big Ideas, her sophomore studio go to class,” Wolf admits. “I mean, I did go to out of that shit.” in both areas.” She recognizes it as a nonlin-
album, set for release on July 12. some classes, but a lot of the classes where it ear process, adding, “If you’ve struggled with
For more than a year, Wolf split her time was like, ‘Let me teach you the right way to it, it’s gonna be a struggle for life no matter
between the stage, the studio, and her home do this,’ I was sleeping through.” what direction you go in.”
in Los Angeles, settling into an insular cre- Her brand of pop music, according- Incorporating consistent routines into her
ative cycle as she crafted the follow-up to ly, veers far away from the melodic math day-to-day has helped Wolf feel more pres-
2021’s Juno — the lyrically unpredictable of someone like Max Martin. Her verses are ent, both physically and emotionally. When
debut LP that marked her as one of the quirk- often sprawling and hyperspecific, as if they we speak, she’s been in New York for four
iest, catchiest artists in alt-pop. Now, she’s re- were leaked messages from a group chat of days and hasn’t yet been able to complete all
acquainting herself with an entirely different close friends. Her melodies will at times take three of her daily target goals: Go on a two-
routine. “I made this record, did all my writ- on three different shapes within a single cho- hour walk, go to yoga, and grab a cup of cof-
ing, and now here comes the other half of rus. Where many pop traditionalists would fee. “It’s hard to feel grounded when you’re
the job: going out and having to look good,” push for polished storylines and pristine pro- having to think about your feelings all the
she says. “I just try to do whatever I would duction, Wolf prefers distorted synths and time,” she says. “My job is to know and un-
do naturally, but at a certain point — when metaphors that liken chaotic relationships to derstand myself. It’s an amazing pursuit. But
you’re constantly being perceived — I don’t making buttermilk from scratch (“One sec- sometimes I just don’t wanna fucking think
really know how it’s affecting my psyche.” ond we’re good, then it’s overkill”). about myself.” LARISHA PAUL

ART
What Cutting-Edge
Sound Looks Like
WHEN SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART associate curator Joseph Becker started work
on the new “Art of Noise” exhibition — billed as a “multi-sensory ode to how design has changed
the way we’ve experienced music over the past 100 years” — he was more than a little overwhelmed.
“It was infinitely vast, daunting, and terrifying,” he says, “to create an exhibit that does justice to all the
ways people have been influenced by music.” He ultimately assembled 800 objects in a 14,000-square-
foot space that spotlight everything from psychedelic posters from the 1960s Haight-Ashbury scene to
Swedish DJ equipment of the 21st century. “I was looking for objects that told stories,” Becker says. He
also set up high-definition listening stations where visitors can experience music from around the world.
“But still,” he adds, “it all just barely touches the surface of what music and design mean.” ANDY GREENE
AUDIO ZONE
Speaker designer Devon Turnball
created this super-high-quality FAR OUT
listening room specifically for the This Doors-Yardbirds poster from July 1967 is the work of
exhibit. It holds about 50 people. psychedelic artist Bonnie MacLean. “Bonnie was creating
“It becomes a transformative some of the most brilliant, expressive posters of the
experience,” Becker says. time,” Becker says. “Highlighting her work is important.”
MUNN (PHOTO BY DON ROSS); © TEENAGE ENGINEERING (PHOTO BY PELLE BERGSTRÖM, SKARP AGENT); © MILTON GLASER, PERMISSION OF THE
FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: © MILTON GLASER, PERMISSION OF THE ESTATE OF MILTON GLASER (PHOTO BY TENARI TUATAGALOA); COURTESY OF
DEVON TURNBULL/LISSON GALLERY (PHOTO BY MICHAEL LAVORGNA, TWITTERINGMACHINES.COM); SFMOMA, GIFT OF JASON MUNN, © JASON
ESTATE OF MILTON GLASER (PHOTO BY TENARI TUATAGALOA); SFMOMA, GIFT OF JIM CHANIN; © WOLFGANG’S VAULT (PHOTO BY DON ROSS);
SFMOMA, ACCESSIONS COMMITTEE PURCHASE, BY EXCHANGE, THROUGH A GIFT OF MICHAEL D. ABRAMS (PHOTO BY DON ROSS)
WHITE OUT SMILEY

This 1956 radio and phonograph player, designed by SMILE
Hans Gugelot and Dieter Rams, is known as “Snow Italian brothers
White’s Coffin.” “Their goal was to create something Achille and
unobtrusive and minimalist,” says Becker. “And it was Pier Giacomo
a turning point in the revolution of the form of audio Castiglioni
products. Most home stereos before that were larger created the
cabinets, pieces of furniture.” RR126 stereo
in 1965. It sells
today for upward
of $15,000.
“They were
thinking about
anthropo-
morphism and
playfulness,”
RIP VIRGIL BOB’S BRAIN says Becker.
Swedish design Milton Glaser “The dials kind of
studio Teenage En- designed this iconic become a face.”
gineering made this Bob Dylan poster
DJ deck for the late in 1967. “It has this “Art of Noise”
artist and fashion Technicolor exuber- San Francisco
designer Virgil Abloh ance that captures Museum of
to use at the Coach- the energy of the Modern Art
ella festival in 2019. Sixties,” Becker says. through Aug. 18
June 2024 | Rolling Stone | 15

The Mix
PROFILE
How Kate Hudson Finally Let

Her Rock & Roll Soul Run Free
She’s always had a great she was in the mood to say yes when
a friend of hers, Tor E. Hermansen of
voice, but it took a long
the production duo Stargate, asked
time for her to get over her her to sing a cover of Katy Perry’s
fears and make a debut “Firework” for a school-charity Zoom.
album of her own Soon afterward, Hudson got a sur-
By BRIAN HIATT prise phone call from songwriter and
producer Linda Perry, a parent at the
A
T THE TURN OF THE CENTURY, same school. “She was like, ‘What the
right around the time Almost fuck? I didn’t know you could sing like
Famous made her an instant that! Do you write music?’ And I go,
superstar, word got around that Kate ‘Yeah.’ She’s like, ‘Well, come in the
Hudson could sing, for real. Inevita- studio.’ ”
bly, the pop machine, which happened Hudson and Perry were near-total
to be running at maximum efficiency strangers, but Hudson arrived at the
in that particular historical moment, studio with another, much more fa-
tried to catch her in its gears. “Peo- miliar collaborator. Danny Fujikawa,
ple in the industry would say, ‘Let’s her fiancé and father of one of her chil-
make a record,’ ” says Hudson. “ ‘Let’s dren, had a music career of his own as
do this. Let’s do that.’ And I always felt a guitarist and songwriter for the indie
not ready. I don’t know why that was band Chief, who released an album
my response. Something was stopping on Domino in 2010. The touring life
me, and I wasn’t reflective enough at had led to substance issues for Fujik-
the time to really think about it — until awa, and he thought his musical life
I got older, and I was like, ‘Why am I was over. “Kate brought me back into
so hesitant with something I love more music with this album, kind of full cir-
than anything?’ ” cle, and it’s been such a blessing for
The answer, Hudson says, “was al- me,” he says.
ways fear of rejection. When I think At that first session, Fujikawa re-
about my songwriting, if someone recalls, “it was me, Kate, and Linda
jected that, I don’t think I had the ca- Perry sitting in a room, and it was
pacity to be ready for it.” Acting was a like an awkward first date. Linda just
different story. “You can always blame strummed a chord and then belted
someone else for a bad movie,” she some howling, crazy sound out of
adds. “If you’re not directing it or pro- her mouth. That kind of set the tone
ducing it or writing it, as an actor, you for Kate, and then, honestly, we just
kind of show up, do the best you can, hit the ground running. We wrote 30
and hope what you gave is gonna turn songs or something over the course of
out great in the editing room. Some- three weeks.” Fujikawa and Hudson
times it really doesn’t! But you have eventually finished the album with
that cushion of like, ‘That wasn’t my deep rock & roll fandom always front another musician, onetime Max Mar-
vision. It was someone else’s.’ And for and center. “The spirit of Penny Lane
“I was like, ‘What tin collaborator Johan Carlsson, who
me, music is the opposite.” The fact descends on everything in my life,” am I doing? What’s co-wrote Ariana Grande’s “Dangerous
that her long-estranged biological fa-
ther, Bill Hudson, had been a success-
Hudson says. “Because I was Penny
Lane.… I love all kinds of music, but
going to happen if I Woman,” among other hits.
The album’s power-ballad title track
ful musician in the 1970s only added to I love rock music, and I love women die? This will be my was one of the easiest Hudson-Perry
the psychological complications. in rock. Linda Ronstadt is my favorite great regret, that I collaborations, written in all of 10 min-
It took decades, lots of therapy, and rock star.” utes. “The process felt like channel-
a global pandemic for Hudson to break When the Covid lockdowns hit, didn’t allow myself ing, and ‘glorious’ just was a word that
through all of those barriers and final- Hudson found herself forced into in- to share music.’” came out,” Hudson says. “It was like
ly write and record an album of her trospection. “I was like, ‘What am I we were in each other’s heads. It was
own. The result, Glorious, is one of the doing?’ ” she recalls. “ ‘What is my awesome.” She connects that feeling
year’s most pleasant musical surpris- life? What’s going to happen if I die? to something that she’s experienced as
es, a thoroughly grown-up and strik- This will be my great regret ever, that an actor: “It’s the moments when you
ingly assured collection of guitar-heavy I didn’t allow myself to share music. hit a scene with someone and every-
thing goes away and it feels so good.
GUY AROCH
songs that tend to land somewhere be- And even if it’s one person who loves
tween Adele and Sheryl Crow, with it, it would mean so much to me.’ And It feels completely present. That’s
Hudson’s big, slightly husky voice and that was it. Like, ‘OK, it’s time.’ ” So, the same thing for me writing music.

You’re so present in it. ‘Glorious’ was
just the best. It was better than sex.”
Hudson doesn’t mind acknowledg-
ing there are moments on the album
that evoke the Black Crowes, the band
fronted by her ex-husband, Chris Rob-
inson. “Well, listen, I mean, talk about
a foundation of my life,” she says. “I
was a fan of my ex-husband before
I met him. I remember what I loved
about the Black Crowes when I was
younger, before I fell in love with him
— the naughtiness and the freedom in
which they chose to create. I have a soft
spot for people like that, even though
they’re challenging and tough. Chris
and I, we didn’t fall in love ’cause we
liked opposite things. We fell in love
’cause we were into the same shit.”
Hudson, who was also once engaged
to Muse’s Matt Bellamy, adds, “People THE BREAKDOWN
always go, ‘You really like those music
guys.’ And I’m always like, ‘They might
How Willow Made Her

like me, too!’ You know, there’s some-
thing about music. I’ve been in re-
lationships where I can’t speak that
Angstiest Song Ever

language with someone, and I don’t
know if I could exist in a unit where
I couldn’t share it properly. It’s a real-
ly, really nice thing to share, and that’s
been why I always end up having ba-
bies with [musicians]. It’s like my pher-
The singer-songwriter channeled her anxieties into a nervy
omones are like, ‘We’ll make a good track from her new album — here’s how it came together
child. We’ll make a musical child. So
By LARISHA PAUL & CAITLIN WHITE
let’s do this!’ ”
Finishing the album felt almost like
as momentous an occasion. “There’s
W
ILLOW WANTED she recalls. In the end, she record, but ultimately, she escape,” she says. “If I ever
so much emotion attached to it, and her song “Run!” chooses to leave, a feeling decided it would be incom- make a video for it, I’m
personal obstacles to overcome to get to evoke the she calls “beautiful,” but plete without them. “It just definitely going to be
feeling of a panic attack — admits, “There’s almost a needs to sound messed up,” running in some regard
here,” she says. “When I knew it was
like the one she nearly had sadness to it because it’s she recalls telling her gui- physically, but [with] that
done and everything was mastered like I wasn’t strong enough tarist Chris Greatti. “It needs being a metaphor for the
when she was stressing
and I was signing off on it, it was like to stay in the moment and to be like you’re wrenching escaping that I’m trying to
out over a confrontation
giving birth to a baby — it really felt that during a relationship. On see this person for who they your heartstrings. That anxi- do inside.” She wants
way. I was incredibly emotional. But her past two albums, Lately really were, and I just ran ety needs to be there.” listeners to connect with the
what was interesting was that I didn’t I Feel Everything (2021) and from the situation.” song’s message: “I hope
have any fear.” Coping Mechanism (2022), Putting It Together people feel there’s beauty in
she wielded this type of Cutting the Vocals Willow built the foundation our human desire to want to
Now, Hudson is looking forward to escape our vulnerability and
angst through brash rock “Run!” is one of the of “Run!” with drums and
her first tour of her own, eyeing fa- standout performances bass. It was a departure escape our fears.”
and pop punk. Now, on her
vorite venues like New York’s Bowery upcoming album, Empatho- on Empathogen. “I hadn’t from her usual process,
Ballroom. And as music biopics start A New Era
REID; PRODUCER: KIM HOYOS; DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: BRET HAMILTON; INTERVIEWER:
gen, Willow is pairing funk really sang like this,” Willow which often starts with
to look like the new superhero movies, influences with distorted in- says of her gritty vocals. “I vocals or guitar. “I needed “Run!” is just one song on
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: KIMBERLY ALEAH; CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: TARA CATHERINE
CAITLIN WHITE; EDITOR: JAMIE GORDON; LOCATION: WESTLAKE RECORDING STUDIOS.
she has a few dream roles in mind that struments to create a sense kind of wanted to stay away to start with those two Empathogen that helped
of paranoia. On “Run!,” she from that more rock-leaning things first, because they Willow break away from past
could combine her two artistic pur-
pushes this sound to an sound because I really want- needed to interplay with habits. “With this album, I
suits. “I think Dusty Springfield is a reed to strip everything back each other and have that feel like I took a bat and just
extreme, as she asks herself
ally interesting story,” she says. “Peo- a question: Will you stay and and just bare my voice in its conversation,” she explains. was like, ‘No, no, no!’ to all
ple don’t know a lot about her, and fight, or run and hide? raw form.” The less-polished From there, the sonic and of these old ways of con-
she’s one of my favorites. She was very vocal texture communicates thematic narrative unfolded. ducting myself as an artist
shy. She had a lot of stage fright and where the singer stood “With all the vocals coming and as a musician,” she says.
struggled with being open about her Letting It Out emotionally: “I really wanted in and out — even the tex- “Coping Mechanism was
Lyrically, “Run!” captures it to feel anxious.” ture of the drums changes definitely a step towards
sexuality. That could be a very power- a little bit — it gets more that. But this was really like,
Willow in a conflicted emo-
ful movie.” Guitar Hero like, ‘Now, I’m not angry ‘OK, now the foot is all the
tional state. She remembers
Even more than that, Hudson would the song pouring out of her St. Vincent was one par- anymore. I’m just scared and way in this new place.’ That
love to play Stevie Nicks. “The ultimate in one day as she processed ticularly strong influence needing to get away from makes me really excited.”
is Stevie,” she says. “I think for all girls the tension between staying here — Willow credits the this,’ ” she says.
who love rock, Stevie’s just our num- or leaving someone. “I’m musician as “an inspiration
trying so hard to be in the for everything that I do.” Visual Thinking
ber one. But my family might, like, dis- WATCH THIS!
moment and see their sin- She was drawn to the ways Willow has already been
own me if I ever got a chance to play Check out episodes
cerity and not let my toxic St. Vincent uses guitar “not contemplating video ideas.
her. ’Cause they’d be like, ‘Can we not mental pattern paint them tonally, but as a feeling.” “I think that the real feeling of The Breakdown at
go method?’ I would probably go way as this person who’s trying Willow was initially reluctant behind the title is an RollingStone.com.
too far into that character.” to attack me or judge me,” to use electric guitars on the emotional and a mental

The Mix
EXPLAINER
Why Is
Everyone
Beefing
With Drake?
O
N THE NIGHT OF APRIL 13, after the leak of his
diss track “Push Ups,” Drake posted a screen-
shot from the movie Kill Bill on his Instagram
Story. It was the iconic fight scene during which
Uma Thurman’s character takes on a roomful of ninja as-
sassins only to emerge victorious. The metaphor couldn’t
be more applicable to Drake’s situation, as he fends off
countless peers out for blood. Rap’s civil war began, in
one sense, with Future and Metro Boomin’s recent album,
We Don’t Trust You, featuring Kendrick Lamar taking not-
so-subtle shots at Drake and J. Cole on the hit “Like That.”
But the tension appears to be dredging up feelings that go
back much further. Here’s a guide to all of the frenemies
who have turned on the Boy. JEFF IHAZA
Future
Perhaps Future wasn’t happy about
Drake choosing to collaborate with
21 Savage on 2022’s Her Loss instead
of making a follow-up to his and
Future’s wildly successful 2015 project,
What a Time to Be Alive. Fans have also wondered if Drake’s
2023 track “What Would Pluto Do” was a sneak diss aimed
at Future. The hip-hop rumor mill has been active with
unsubstantiated reports of Drake “stealing” Future’s girl,
which would make Drake’s line “What would Pluto do? He’d
fuck the ho, so I did it” take on an entirely new meaning.
Metro Boomin
Metro expressed frustration at Her Loss receiving more attention
than his own Heroes & Villains during awards season in a quickly de-
leted tweet this past December. Many fans believe Drake responded
during a livestream on the gambling platform
Stake, where he said, “To the rest of you — the
nonbelievers, the underachievers, the tweet-and-
deleters — you guys make me sick to my stomach,
fam.” Metro then took to social media with a
series of veiled jabs about taking “sides.”
Kendrick Lamar
Kendrick Lamar’s disdain for Drake goes back as far as 2012, when Lamar
made a guest appearance on Take Care that hinted at a budding rivalry.
The two remained cordial until Drake was mentioned by name in Lamar’s
industry-shaking verse on Big Sean’s 2013 single “Control.” Drake seemed
to shrug this off, but Lamar went further during a BET Awards cypher,
WHAT, ME
rapping, “Nothing’s been the same since they dropped ‘Control’/And tucked the sensitive rap- WORRY?
per back in his pajama clothes.” The two have exchanged subliminals since then — and this year, Drake is being
Lamar went nuclear with a series of songs defined by their pure hate for Drake’s very being. targeted on all sides.

Rick Ross
Rick Ross has been one of Drake’s most consistent collaborators
over the years, so his appearance on Future and Metro Boomin’s THE FIVE
cut “Everyday Hustle” came as a surprise to many. But there
had been friction between the two in the past — and after Drake WILDEST
RAP BEEFS
dropped “Push Ups,” featuring a direct shot at “Ricky’s” age, Ross
went into attack mode. On his own diss track, “Champagne Moments,” he repeatedly
calls Drake “white boy,” in a tasteless reference to his mixed-race background, and
alleges that Drake only associated with street rappers early in his career to gain legiti-
macy. The two have since waged an all-out meme war online. OF ALL TIME
Before Drake vs. Everyone,
A$AP Rocky these were hip-hop’s
In his feature on the We Don’t Trust You follow-up We Still Don’t craziest, silliest, and most
tragic feuds
Trust You, A$AP Rocky says, “Niggas in they feelings over
women, what, you hurt or somethin’?/I smashed before you
birthed, son, Flacko hit it first, son.” The tension appears, on the
surface, to be about Rocky’s current relationship with Rihanna.
1 Jay-Z vs. Nas
After years of tension, the
two New York kings traded
However, Rocky’s verse also recalls Drake’s last public beef, with Pusha T. Back then, personally insulting shots
it was rumored that Rocky was responsible for leaking the information about Drake’s on 2001’s “The Takeover”
then-secret son, Adonis, to Pusha. Now, it seems Rocky might be claiming to have and “Ether.” Years after they
been with the mother of Drake’s son before him — which, in fairness, is kind of an odd squashed the beef, the de-
thing for the father of Rihanna’s children to be bragging about on a diss track. bate over who won rages on.
The Weeknd 2 Tupac vs. Biggie

The most notable rap beef
is also the saddest. It’s the
Bad blood between Drake and the Weeknd started when one that went too far, ending
Drake first posted songs by the then-unknown R&B crooner in two tragedies in 1996 and
on his OVO blog back in 2010. As the story goes, Drake want- 1997, and setting a somber
ed to sign the Weeknd to his label, OVO, whereas the Weeknd example of what can happen
wanted to make his own path. After the Weeknd ultimately when bars turn into bullets.
signed to Republic in 2012, the two were seldom seen together publicly, though
any rumors of tension seemed to be quelled as Drake rapped on 2019’s “War” that
“The boy that sound like he sang on Thriller, you know that’s been my nigga/We
3 50 Cent vs. Ja Rule
50 Cent feuded with
practically every other rap
just had to fix things, family, six tings we can’t split up.” And yet, here we are. The
star of his day — it was kind of
Weeknd appeared on several Future and Metro Boomin tracks, most pointedly his thing — but his funniest,
“All to Myself,” where he alludes to the OVO situation with the line “I thank God most entertaining tiff was the
that I never signed my life away.” He also takes aim at Drake’s associates with the one that ended Ja’s early-
line “They could never diss my brothers, baby/When they got leaks in they opera- 2000s chart reign.
tion,” and the particularly vicious bar “Their shooters making TikToks.”
Travis Scott
4 Jadakiss vs.
Beanie Sigel
Most beefs are personal —
this was sport. Beanie Sigel’s
Yet another rapper who’s apparently chosen sides is Travis Scott,
“Kiss the Game Goodbye”
who appears on Future and Metro Boomin’s project, though not and Jadakiss’ “Fuck Beanie”
overtly dissing Drake in his lyrics. One line from Drake’s “Push freestyle remain underrated
Ups” that fans seem to believe is directed at Scott: “Rolling Loud classics, full of witty digs.
stage, y’all were turnt, that was slick as hell/Shit’ll probably
change if your BM start to kiss and tell.” It was Scott who hyped up the crowd at Roll-
ing Loud in March as Metro and Future performed “Like That,” and there’s suspicion 5 N.W.A vs. Ice Cube
After N.W.A’s principal
that the “BM” (short for baby mama) in question is Scott’s ex Kylie Jenner. songwriter walked away from
the group’s dubious contract,
his former bandmates threw
Ja Morant Kanye West darts. Ice Cube returned fire
with the brutal four-minute
Among the more random re- Drake’s longtime nemesis Kanye diss track “No Vaseline.”
sponses on Drake’s “Push Ups” is West joined in on the acrimony
a reference to NBA star Ja Morant, by jumping on a remix of “Like
the “hooper that be bustin’ out the That.” Their feud goes back to
griddy,” as Drake puts it. Apparently, 2018, when Pusha T took shots
Morant responded in affirmation to at Drake on a West-produced beat, which led to
one of Metro Boomin’s cryptic posts Drake’s “Duppy Freestyle,” and ultimately to Pusha
about picking a side, and Drake took T’s infamous “The Story of Adidon.” The tension con-
notice. The source of tinued after West dropped “Lift Yourself,” featuring a
the tension between beat that Drake allegedly expressed interest in and
the two appears to be that West decided to figuratively take a dump
Drake dating Morant’s on. Internet rumors about Drake and Kim
rumored ex, the Kardashian, as well as West’s appearances on
model and influencer podcasts and on social media, suggest the
Jadakiss (left)
Johanna Leia. feud will continue for a while. and Sigel
The Mix
ELECTION 2024 How do you feel about RFK Jr., who

was once a leading environmental
lawyer, is now one of the loudest
Jane Fonda Takes the conspiracy theorists in the nation,

and whose third-party candidacy
could boost Trump in the polls?
Perplexed. He has been a friend of
Climate Fight to D.C. mine. I really respect what he’s done

for rivers and waterways in the U.S.,
but I was just watching TV before you
called and he was saying that prosecu-
tors [in the Jan. 6 case] maybe pushed
The actress and activist on too far for political reasons, and we
FIGHT THE POWER
the do-or-die election, the Fonda at a climate have to take another look. It’s just so
threat of fossil fuels, and protest in 2020 disturbing. I don’t get it. But this is no
finding purpose time for [people to cast] a protest vote
[for him]. We have to face the facts. A
By CHARISMA MADAR ANG third-party candidate is not going to
J
ANE FONDA has two Best Actress win, and we cannot go there.
Oscars (and five more nomina- You often call the climate crisis a
tions) to her name, but over the health crisis. Can you elaborate?
past five-plus decades, the Hollywood The fossil-fuel industry is a wound-
icon, 86, has become far better known ed beast right now. Fossil fuels are on
— and sometimes excoriated — for her their way out, and so [those corpo-
political activism. She’s protested the rations] are poking holes all over the
Vietnam War, fundraised for the Black place as fast as they can to try to get
Panthers, and stood with Native Amer- the last drop of gas or oil to ratchet
icans fighting to reclaim land. She’s up profits. It’s really dangerous. This
condemned violence against women isn’t just happening in California. I’ve
and advocated for reproductive rights. seen it all over. We have to stop them.
She’s been jailed, spat on, and cursed Asthma and cancer and strokes are on
at. And she’s been undeterred. These the rise. We are breathing in fossil fuel
days, it’s the climate crisis that con- and other chemicals all the time. It is
sumes her. In 2019, Fonda co-found- a health crisis.
ed Fire Drill Fridays, a recurring cli- For individuals who want to help
mate protest in Washington, D.C. (She make a significant change in the cli-
was arrested five times during those mate movement, what is the best
actions.) In 2022, she founded the Jane way forward?
Fonda Climate PAC to fund state and If you want to go fast, go alone. But if
local candidates who refuse to accept you want to go far, go together. Join
money from fossil-fuel companies. As an organization, join a protest. You’ll
the November election approaches, make good friends who share your val-
she views the problem with growing ues. I went from a hedonistic, mean-
urgency. Nearly two-thirds of Ameri- ingless life to becoming an activist in
DANIELE VENTURELLI/WIREIMAGE; PRINCE WILLIAMS/WIREIMAGE; LAURENT KOFFEL/GAMMA-RAPHO VIA GETTY IMAGES;

PREVIOUS SPREAD, FROM TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: CARMEN MANDATO/GETTY IMAGES; MANNY HERNANDEZ/GETTY IMAGES;
RICH STORRY/GETTY IMAGES; JOHNNY NUNEZ/GETTY IMAGES; DAVID LIVINGSTON/WIREIMAGE; JUSTIN FORD/NBAE/
cans say they are “worried” about the 1970. And it was meeting new friends
climate, Fonda notes, but they don’t that really did it for me. I thought,
always bring that concern to the bal- “Oh, my God, I’ve never met peo-
lot box. “I’m trying to encourage people like this before. They’re living for
GETTY IMAGES; BELLOCQIMAGES/BAUER-GRIFFIN/GETTY IMAGES; JOHNNY NUNEZ/GETTY IMAGES, 2

ple to vote with climate in mind,” she something bigger than themselves.
says. “There are enough of us that if ident Biden, meanwhile, has signed What are examples of approaches They could be running corporations,
we band together, we can win.” the Inflation Reduction Act — touted to climate issues that you support? they could be going for money, but
as the government’s largest invest- The majority of the problem in terms they’re not — they’re going to make
How do you see the upcoming ment in renewable energy — into law, of the climate is caused by burning the world better.” It was like looking
election dictating how the United but many say he hasn’t done enough. fossil fuels: oil, gas, and coal. That’s through a keyhole of the world that we
States approaches climate change? Here’s the thing: Biden provides us at the root of it. Candidates must un- were trying to create. Fundamentally,
November’s election is an existential with terrain on which we can fight. derstand this and must have a plan for we all want our lives to have meaning,
election, because who becomes pres- This is a man who can be pressured. what to do about it — and they have right? I know what it feels like to not
ident is going to be a big determining We can make him do more. The other to have the guts to make it work, to have meaning, and I know what it feels
factor on whether there’s a livable fu- guy, there’s no making him do more. enact it. like to suddenly begin a life where you
ture. [But] down-ballot — city council, He’s going in the other direction. That can be Dana Nessel, Michi- know why you’re here.
state legislators, boards of supervisors, Voting for somebody isn’t marrying gan attorney general; chief executive What issues are you tackling next?
mayors — is where the robust work on them. It’s not even going on a date. It’s in Harris County, Texas, Lina Hidal- Honey, what I’m doing now is what
climate is happening. In California, a pragmatic decision. When you con- go; land commissioner in New Mexi- I’m going to do till I die. I can’t think
there are so many empty state legisla- sider the stakes ... nobody’s perfect — co, Stephanie Garcia Richard — these about anything else. I go to sleep on it.
tive seats. We have to be sure that we no candidate, no marital partner. But people all have climate plans. They all I’ll wake up thinking about it. Because,
fill those with climate champions. we are on the precipice and time is come from oil-producing states. They you know, if we started doing every-
If Trump is reelected, he is likely running out. We have to elect people all have to be able to thread the nee- thing correctly right now, my four-
to pull out of the Paris Agreement who will stand up to this issue. dle. So, you have to find somebody year-old grandson would be living in
again, and he has said he’s going to You’ve urged political candidates that’s smart and brave, and that will a pretty cool world in 25 years. Now
“drill, baby, drill” on Day One. Pres- to bring fearless ideas to the table. stand up to fossil fuels. that’s worth fighting for.
20 | Rolling Stone | June 2024 PHOTOGRAPH BY Yana Yatsuk

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The Mix
HOW DID I GET HERE?

Byrne in a still from
Talking Heads’ classic
1984 concert film.
REMAKE
A New Side of Talking Heads

How an all-star group of in 36 years. But the use of their songs band members — Byrne, Jerry Harri- The second part of that revival ar-
in everything from Gilmore Girls and son, Tina Weymouth, and Chris Frantz rived this spring with Everyone’s Get-
young, eclectic musicians Wall Street up through Byrne’s Amer- — putting aside their much-document- ting Involved: A Tribute to Talking
reinterpreted the ‘Stop ican Utopia stage musical and movie ed rancor and promoting the film to- Heads’ Stop Making Sense. As covers
Making Sense’ soundtrack has kept their music in the public ear, gether, often to ecstatic cheers from records go, it’s unusual on several lev-
By DAVID BROWNE along with a steady stream of covers audiences. “I assumed — I guess els: a salute not just to the band but
by Florence + the Machine, Cage the wrongly — that memory fades away, also to that iconic movie’s soundtrack.
G
ROWING UP in Texas in the Elephant, Eddie Vedder, and others. and that at some point, you’re kind of And it includes versions by not just
2000s, new-generation The revival culminated in last year’s a ‘Where are they now?’ like you see a few established artists, like Miley
FROM TOP: JORDAN CRONENWETH/A24; SIRE + WARNER MUSIC GROUP/A24

rap-rock star Teezo Touch- successful rerelease of a newly on one of those cheesy Cyrus (“Psycho Killer”), Lorde (“Take
down was largely unfamil- restored Stop Making Sense in documentaries,” Byrne Me to the River”), Paramore (“Burning
iar with Talking Heads. But as he was theaters through distributor says with a laugh. “But Down the House”), and the National
making his own records and plotting A24, and the sight of the four that didn’t happen. (“Heaven”), but just as many by newer
a stage show, some of his colleagues That’s really surprising acts from around the world: Teezo
thought he’d be inspired by the band and flattering.” Frantz (“Making Flippy Floppy”), the L.A.
and called up a clip from its 1984 con- adds that he was espe- funk band Chicano Batman (“Cros-
cert movie, Stop Making Sense. “The cially impressed by the seyed and Painless”), Norwegian pop
opening shot of David Byrne coming roar that greeted them on star Girl in Red (“Girlfriend Is Better”),
out with a boombox and doing ‘Psy- The Late Show With Ste- Nigerian American DJ Tunez (“Life
cho Killer’ — I had a true discovery phen Colbert: “It was an During Wartime”), the Argentine indie
moment,” Teezo recalls. “With what awesome feeling.” band Él Mató a un Policía Motorizado
he was doing, and the production and (“Slippery People”), and others. “They
the visuals, they had the total package. bring a good, new, fresh energy to this
The expanded lineup
It’s still fresh.” of Talking Heads that project,” says Frantz. “We in Talking
Talking Heads haven’t toured since performed in the original Heads, we’re senior citizens now. I get
1983 and haven’t released a new album concert film a discount almost everywhere now.”

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The Mix
The dominance of newer artists, desk shake — nods. “A lot of younger it still fits the lyrics and the song.” He
many not yet born when Talking Heads
The Name of the people are exposed to [Talking Heads also admires Lorde’s “very sexy vocal,”
dissolved, makes sense to Blondshell,
Band They Love Is songs] at a really early age, when it and finds Cyrus’ powered-up “Psycho
a.k.a. Sabrina Teitelbaum, who con- Talking Heads seems to mean a lot to them,” he says. Killer” particularly striking. “It’s cheer-
tributed a hushed, slow-burning re- From top: Teezo Touchdown, “It says that being a little bit weird and ful!” he says. “If the original is about
make of the otherwise galloping Hayley Williams of Paramore, odd is all right. ‘Look, here’s some- alienation to the point of violence, this
“Thank You for Sending Me an Angel.” Blondshell, and Chicano Batman’s body else who did it and were kind of one seems like a singalong country
For her, the mere fact that the band Eduardo Arenas successful.’ It has that effect, especially song. And Paramore did a really good
shifted its sound from record to record with young women and social media version of capturing the feel of how we
and wasn’t easy to pin down made a making them feel they have to con- played [‘Burning Down the House’].”
major impression. “I think everybody’s form. This gives them a little encour- A hip-hop recasting of “Once in a
influenced by them,” Teitelbaum says. agement: ‘No, it’s OK to be different.’ ” Lifetime” by Kevin Abstract bemuses
“It’s one of those cultural things where Chicano Batman singer and bass- Frantz: “I’m still trying to figure out
it’s hard to escape. There’s so much ist Eduardo Arenas remembers hear- that one. I’ll get it one day.” Of an
pressure to fit in a lane and get defined ing the band as a kid, but not being electro-lounge version of “Life During
by it, but their music isn’t in a specific as impressed. “I always felt they were Wartime” by DJ Tunez, Byrne says,
genre. People will say New Wave or very square,” he says. “I’m into funk, “I love it when it gives a song a com-
whatever, but it doesn’t feel boxed in, man, and I’m like, ‘Man, there’s not pletely different meaning. ‘Life During
and that’s part of the legacy.” enough soul in this for me.’ ” (When Wartime’ — ‘Is that how it’s going to
As the former members of Talking Byrne hears this, he breaks into laugh- end? Is that how things are going to
Heads admit, the concept for the ter: “The polo shirts and shortish hair, go?’ It’s like the dance band on the Ti-
tribute LP originated with A24, yeah — that was our street clothes, but tanic. The band just keeps playing.”
which wanted a companion piece I also thought it would be more sub- As for their own future, the Heads
for the rereleased film (another label versive to not look like a rock & roll- are, not surprisingly, noncommit-
owns the original Stop Making Sense tal. “I’ve learned not to expect [any-
soundtrack). “This way they get to put David Byrne likes thing],” Harrison says. “We have taken
out a record!” says Harrison, who calls baby steps forward to repairing our re-
it “entirely a commercial idea.” Frantz some of the more lationship.” When the band appeared
was impressed by the global reach of out-there covers: “I on Colbert, the host had a bunch of
the artist lineup. “It’s a big world out instruments set up and asked if they
there,” he says. “I’m sure A24 has this
love it when it gives would play a song. “What was going
in mind, to get exposure for the film in a song a completely through my mind was ‘Which song
should we choose? Does everybody
these markets outside of the U.S.”
Commercial considerations aside,
different meaning.” remember?’ ” Harrison says. “[‘Life
the lineup of contributors to the rec- During Wartime’] would have been
ord wound up becoming a testament the most likely, because that one had
to the way that Talking Heads’ music er.”) But after seeing Stop Making the ability to be totally spontaneous.”
has transcended its time and can speak Sense about 20 years ago, Arenas be- It didn’t happen, and Byrne says re-
to multiple generations. In a statement came a fan. “It just changed my life,” ports of a multimillion-dollar offer to
accompanying “Take Me to the River,” he says. “David Byrne is running in cir- play festivals this summer were false.
Lorde explains that she first heard cles around the band and still singing, “That was completely made up,” he
the song when she was 12, back in and the whole band is killing it.” Are- says. “I don’t know where it came
2008, when her mother played her a nas now calls Talking Heads: 77 “a pal- from. That offer was never made.”
low-quality video of the band playing ate cleanser”: “Every time I’m tired of Frantz says there were offers, but
the song. “I don’t understand what I’m what I’m doing and need a new direc- adds, “Our feeling was ‘Things are
feeling, but I do understand that the tion, I put that album on.” going really well for us — we don’t have
band in the grainy video live with the Seeing Stop Making Sense again last to do a tour.’ It’s a lot of work. I don’t
same strangeness that I do,” she writes. year made Teitelbaum think about know how the Rolling Stones and the
“My palms tingle. My insides are re- the band’s impact on concert staging Who and these guys do it anymore. I
placed.” (When she and Byrne met for today. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, there’s know a lot of people will say ‘You’re
a ROLLING STONE Musicians on Musi- so much I’m seeing that people have crazy not to take that offer.’ But I
cians cover in 2021, she noted that she used in concerts and concert films that would have preferred if they’d asked
was particularly taken by Byrne’s abili- I didn’t realize was from this’ — like us to do it 20 years ago. You know,
ty not to blink while performing.) when the random words pop up be- when we had real vigor.” Frantz also
Teitelbaum remembers hearing hind the stage,” she says. “There’s so alludes to conversations about record-
“This Must Be the Place (Naïve Mel- much from Stop Making Sense in what ing new material, which Byrne and
FROM TOP: SALIHAH SAADIQ; AARON J. THORNTON/WIREIMAGE;

ody)” on a TV show when she was I saw in a 1975 show. And not just them Harrison say they don’t recall. (Wey-
in eighth grade. “I was like, ‘What’s — stuff that’s choreographed and the mouth, who was in the studio working GRIFFIN LOTZ; RANDY HOLMES/DISNEY/GETTY IMAGES
this?’ ” she recalls. “I think it’s the theatrical nature of it.” on a tribute album to Robbie Shake-
way that David sings, and the lyrics. Talking Heads’ members, who had speare, was unavailable for comment.)
Not to be emo, but I felt really seen no role in selecting songs or artists, Teezo hopes it happens, as he says,
at the time by that song. What I had are still wrapping their minds around “when the time is right for them.” But
been listening to didn’t reflect what I all the eclectic versions of their songs, even if any type of full Heads reunion
was going through in the same way. I which arrived piecemeal over a period never comes to be, at least the con-
wanted a Talking Heads tattoo in high of time. Harrison cites the overhaul of tributors to Everyone’s Getting Involved
school, which shows me how much “Swamp” by Mexican American singer have taken something with them from
they meant to me.” and songwriter Jean Dawson. “It’s sort the experience. “There’s something to
Hearing those remarks, Byrne — of like if Johnny Cash did the song, like be said about how funky square rock
speaking moments after an earthquake his version of ‘Hurt,’ ” Harrison says. can be,” Arenas says. “There’s a lot of
rattled New York and made his office “It’s like, ‘Whoa, is that different!’ But soul inside the squares.”

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k0DUVRU$IƓOLDWHV
The Mix
[ D I C K E Y B E T T S , 1 9 4 3 -2 0 2 4 ]
The Last Ramblin’ Man

The soulful guitarist made Southern rock beautiful during his time
with the Allman Brothers Band, but drama was always nearby
By DAVID BROWNE
A
T A DOWN-HOME EATERY near his waterfront home on Florida’s Idlewild South, or “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” the haunted, simmering in-
west coast in 2017, Dickey Betts, stout and white-haired but still strumental on the same record. And, of course, “Blue Sky,” his bighearted love
evoking his youthful intensity, was asked about his imposing repu- song that soared into the ether. He and his bandmate Duane Allman were per-
tation. “People are a little bit standoffish because they think if they fect musical foils, with Allman’s lacerating slide guitar and fiery notes balanced
say something wrong, I’ll be aggressive or something with them,” out by Betts’ sweeter, spiraling tone, rooted in jazz and Western swing. “When
he told ROLLING STONE, adding with his drawl, “But I’m not like that at all. Un- you hear B.B. King do the two notes on ‘Lucille,’ that’s absolutely B.B. King,”
less you start saying shit that’s really demeaning, and then I won’t hesitate to …” says Brad Paisley, who played some of Betts’ songs in his youth. “And same with
Betts didn’t finish the sentence, but you had a sense of what he meant. “I guess Dickey. You just hear a couple of notes [and recognize him].”
I have a face and attitude that kinda scares people.” When Duane Allman died in 1971, Betts had little choice but to step up even
Betts, who died on April 18 at age 80 of complications from cancer and pul- further, and it would be his songs — the easy-rolling country of “Ramblin’ Man,”
monary disorder, was one of Southern rock’s — or any rock’s — most daunting the instrumental “Jessica,” or the beefy rocker “Crazy Love” — that reignited the
characters. During his years leading and powering the Allman Brothers Band, band artistically and commercially. “The fact they were able to continue and
he was so iconic — that handlebar mustache, the tight-lipped moodiness, those still had an identity tells you how important he was,” Paisley says. With his first
Western-sheriff jackets — that Cameron Crowe based the Almost Famous charac- post-Allmans band, Great Southern, he hit another high note with songs like
ter Russell Hammond on him. “Gregg [Allman] had the rock-star thing dripping “Bougainvillea,” a melancholy ballad that shook off its blues once Betts’ guitar
off him — he was a walking myth,” says Derek Trucks, who briefly played along- took over. “He wasn’t an ‘I’m gonna sit around and listen to sad songs all day’
side Betts in the Allmans and remained a friend. “But it wasn’t intimidating in type of guy,” says Duane Betts, who watched his dad wander around their prop-
the same way Dickey was with that cowboy hat. Sometimes he tucked that hat erty with a guitar as he wrote songs. “He liked to be uplifted.”
down, you couldn’t even see his face.” Those who knew and worked with him over the years still grapple with that
Everybody has their “good Dickey and bad Dickey” stories, says Richard Brent, duality. “He wrote some of the most beautiful rock songs ever,” says Trucks. “I’d
who runs the Allmans’ Big House Museum in Macon, Georgia. Trucks heard about put ‘Blue Sky’ and ‘Jessica’ against anything. For me, it was an easy lesson in
the time one of Betts’ solo-band members walked out of his hotel room to find the dichotomy in life. He was severe and intense, but also a beautiful character.”
Betts, an avid hunter, shooting arrows down the hallway. (“But I’m not a nut, like As the Seventies ended, Southern rock grew homogenized, but Betts remained
Ted Nugent,” Betts later told RS.) Betts’ legend includes a jacket with “Eat Shit” his own man. Talking to RS in 2017, he bristled at the memory of two pop-leaning
emblazoned on its back, and chopping up the furniture in his house during a dis- albums the group recorded for Arista in the early Eighties, saying the label
pute with one of his five wives, according to the book Midnight Riders, by Scott wanted “a disco album” and “all our good shit wound up on the cutting-room
Freeman. “He was very gentle inside,” recalls the Marshall Tucker Band’s Doug floor.” When the Allmans fell apart for the second time, he recorded and shelved
Gray, who toured and partied with Betts in the Seventies, “but don’t rile him up.” a country album in Nashville. “It was an attempt to fit in,” says Warren Haynes,
Gregg Allman’s son Devon said he was “scared shitless” when he first met who sang background on a few of its songs. “He said he didn’t feel comfortable.”
Betts in the late Eighties, when he joined his father and the reunited Allman Starting in 1989, the band members put aside their differences (Betts had ini-
Brothers Band on tour. Betts seemed to be giving him the cold shoulder during tially been furious after Allman testified against the band’s drug dealer in 1976),
early gigs, until one aftershow party, when Devon got up to sing. “He ran over to and the Allmans regrouped yet again. Per usual, Betts stepped up, especially since
me, after being pretty chilly on the tour so far,” Devon recalls, “and extended his Allman himself was grappling with his own substance-abuse issues. Haynes, who
hand and said, ‘Man, I didn’t know you could sing like that.’ He was still a bad- had been hired for Betts’ solo band right before the reunion, took note of an im-
ass, but I got to see a sweet, kinder, gentler side.” mediate shift. “As soon as we started rehearsing, I noticed a change in his serious-
In addition to seemingly hundreds of stories like that, Betts also left behind ness with which he was taking the music,” Haynes says. “He had a lot more rever-
a trail of arrests and rehab stints, the stuff of outlaw legend. “It’s no secret that ence for the Allman Brothers music, and was more protective of it.”
my dad raised some hell in his life and got kicked off of a few airplanes,” says his The Nineties marked a rebirth for the Allmans. With them, Betts wrote one of
son, Duane. “We all have demons we have to deal with, and he was no different.” his standards, the philosophical country song “Seven Turns,” and 1994’s “Back
Precisely what Betts’ demons were was never quite clear. The son of a carpen- Where It All Begins” demonstrated the way he could push his guitar into smol-
ter who played fiddle, Forrest Richard Betts was born and raised in Florida. He dering new heights. He took enormous pride in Bob Dylan joining him for a duet
would hint at turmoil in his upbringing: “My dad came home drunk one night of “Ramblin’ Man” onstage during that period: “He fuckin’ sang word for word,
and broke my ukulele,” he told RS in 2017. “But you don’t want to read that shit!” and I told him later, ‘Those words have never meant so much in its existence!’ ”
Betts channeled those troubles into some of the most exquisite moments in But drama still followed, starting with Betts’ private offstage area, where he
a genre, Southern rock, that prided itself on its Hungry Man brawniness. Listen would sit alone while others took solos. As Betts told Allmans biographer Alan
to “Revival,” the joyful singalong he contributed to the Allmans’ second album, Paul, he went on a “three-year drunk” in the mid-Nineties, and the band con-

fronted him after Betts bailed on shows a few years later. At New THE INTIMIDATOR The following year, Betts put his retirement aside and played
York’s Beacon Theatre, where the Allmans played extended res- Betts, here in 1975, was a a handful of shows with a band that included his son. “I was
idencies, Devon Allman watched Betts storm off during a show. daunting presence with so proud of him that he persevered and got through that tour
the Allman Brothers Band,
“He was really pissed off at his rig and his guitar, and he threw and each show got better,” Duane says. But any plans for more
both onstage and off.
it down and split,” Allman recalls. gigs were cut short when Betts suffered a minor stroke in 2018.
The Allmans remained a fraught band even then: “There was From that point on, Betts remained offstage and out of the
always drama, as far as original members not getting along and complaining, and headlines, except for the time when his wife, Donna, was arrested for pointing a
a lot of tension at that point,” says Haynes, who left, for a time, in 1997. In 2000, gun at a group of teens and coaches of the Sarasota Crew team rowing past their
Betts was out of the band after the others complained about his excesses (which house. (“They’re high school kids, but from real rich families,” Betts groused.
he denied) and playing too loud onstage. (He would maintain that his dismissal “They’re arrogant as hell.”)
partly stemmed from him asking for an audit of the band’s finances: “Big fuckin’ Last December, the Allman Betts Family Revival, which includes Duane Betts
mistake on my part,” he told RS.) “To see [the band] playing all of his songs with- and Devon Allman, played a show in Sarasota, Florida, in time for Betts’ 80th
out him in it, it hurt,” says Duane Betts. “There were quite a few years there birthday. The Dickey Betts who showed up was older and frailer than ever, but
where it really hurt my heart, and I know it hurt his.” seemed to have reconciled with his past and demons. “We didn’t know if he
The roughly two decades that followed brought a new set of challenges for wanted to get out of the house, but he came to the show and got to eat his birth-
FIN COSTELLO/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES
Betts. Sitting in with the Tedeschi Trucks Band at the Beacon in 2013 and play- day cake and got to see us play his music,” says Allman. Taking a seat by the side
ing Allmans songs, he was greeted like a returning hero. “When he walked on- of the stage, Betts remained vigilant of his and the Allmans’ music and legacy as
stage, you could feel there was a lot of pent-up appreciation,” says Trucks. But as he watched the band re-create his songs, with what seemed like, at last, added
he soon learned, Allmans fans weren’t as eager to buy tickets to his solo shows. serenity. “He watched every note and drank a cold beer,” says Allman, “and he
By the time RS spoke with Betts in 2017, he’d decided to retire from the road. “If said, ‘Everybody sounded so great.’ ”
I played new songs in my show, the audience is bored with them,” he said with a Looking back over his life, talking with RS, Betts shook off his tribulations: “It’s
shrug. “So all of that, I said, ‘You know, I think it’s time to enjoy life.’ ” Betts never complicated, but you know what? I wouldn’t have traded it for anything because
blamed Gregg Allman for his ousting him from the band, and shortly before All- I know nothing is perfect and nothing is permanent. What can I tell ya? I’m not
man’s death in 2017, the two men finally reconciled by phone. that goddamn interesting!”

The Mix
‘I
’VE KNOWN I WAS GOING I contemplated calling the
to make a record called song “Fleas,” but I don’t sing
All Born Screaming since “fleas.” Again, you know,
I was 23,” says St. Vincent. serve the song and then deal
“But I just wasn’t ready. I with the aftermath later.
wasn’t really worthy of the Would you mind explain-
title, ’cause you have to live ing the full story of your
a lot to be worthy of a title involvement with Taylor
that really says it all. It’s the Swift’s “Cruel Summer”?
beauty, it’s the brutality, and I don’t mind people asking
it’s all part of the same con- me about the song. I know
tinuum.” St. Vincent’s superb it’s a ripper of a song. And I
new album of that name is am so amazed at Taylor’s fans
suffused with beauty and because they took a song that
brutality in equal measure, was from many records ago
with Nine Inch Nails-worthy and they were like, “No, this
noise bursts, some elegant is a hit.” And they marched it
crooning, and a few of her up the charts and made it a
most streamlined hard-rock worldwide hit. I’m just, like,
tracks ever, some assisted God bless her fans. That’s the
by Dave Grohl on drums. coolest thing. I’ve never seen
There are also a few entirely anything like it, really. Yeah,
unexpected moments on the “Cruel Summer” was a track
album, which is the first the I worked on with Jack [An-
artist, 41, has produced on tonoff ], and it found its way
her own, including the off- to Taylor, and she wrote it.
kilter dub reggae of “So Many When you made the in-
Planets,” which she spiced strumental track originally,
with a jazzy guitar solo what did you think it was
meant to evoke Larry Carl- going to be?
ton’s playing with Steely Dan. Oh, I didn’t know. We were
“So much of making this just having fun and just mak-
record was, like, everything ing music.
has to be tactile,” she says. I’m a fan of Nowhere
“It has to start with electrici- Inn, your 2021 movie with
ty and analog circuitry. It has Carrie Brownstein.
to be touched.” Oh, you’re one of five
[laughs]. Usually when
This album seems a lot musicians make documen-
more direct and unguarded taries, it’s more or less a
than your past work. marketing tool. We just took
Q&A
In past records, I’ve been all the tropes of the classic
very interested in the idea musician documentary and
of persona and iconography. did them wrong. I think what
I realized I’ve done that in Carrie and I were trying to say
St. Vincent
my work because I’m queer. is that all of this authenticity
I’ve known that gender is that gets peddled to us is total
performance since I was a artifice. So what if we actually
child. But this record isn’t manufactured it, knowing
about persona or identity. It’s The rock iconoclast on jamming with herself, co-writing that? But also, people like a
just about, like, life and death story and people like a hero,
and love, and how in some
Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer,” and the power of love and [the idea was] what if I
ways life is impossible but we By BRIAN HIATT made myself so incredibly
get to live it. We’ve only got unlikable? And that’s why no
one of them, depending on These songs sound like the sounds have to serve with Dave Grohl on it, aren’t one liked it! [Laughs.]
your belief system. And the they were created by jam- the song. I could do this for you pretty much obligated Is there an artist you’d
only thing worth living for, ming with a band, but you hours, but what’s your heart to write an equally good like to play in a biopic?
actually, is love. So much of actually did it on your own, saying? “That’s cute. That’s song called “Dave Grohl” It’s an interesting genre [but]
modern society is designed to with musicians added later. clever. Go deeper. Really look and get Flea to play on it? it’s not a genre I peddle in.
belittle us, to fracture us. At What’s your secret to that? in the mirror, really reckon Absolutely. That is next on Unless you do a Todd Haynes
the risk of being kumbaya, it’s I’ve got a mixer set up with with all this.” And because I the list. Yeah, absolutely. I Bob Dylan. That’s the way to
radical to love thy neighbor. three drum machines, two produced it alone, there are played some shows with the do it. I just can’t suspend my
I’m not of a particular faith, synths. This was my way of certain songs I sang a hun- Chili Peppers not too long disbelief when there’s a scene
but, like, we’re all we got. setting up all my machines dred times. It wasn’t about ago, which was so fun. And I where, like, someone starts
Ordinarily, I might say and jamming with myself “I need to make this a perfect love Flea. He’s a great dude. playing a thing, and then the
“Yeah, awesome” to an an- for hours and hours. Even performance.” It was almost Great bass player. drummer’s like, “Hey, that’s
swer, but I don’t want to un- if I only used four seconds, like what you hear David You must have known pretty cool” — and the mics
ALEX DA CORTE
derplay what you just said. it was all worth it. Then you Fincher does to actors. that you were in for com- are turned the wrong fucking
[Laughs.] No, that’s OK. I read have to go back and go, “But Now that you have a ments like that when you re- way. I can’t suspend my
it off a meme, so don’t worry. what about songs?” All of great song called “Flea” corded a song called “Flea.” disbelief. I just can’t.

Natıonal
Affaırs
A M E R I C A A F T E R R O E
Alabama’s War
on Women
Anti-abortion activists have sought full legal rights for embryos since the
Seventies. Today, Alabamians are learning the true cost of that fight, from
IVF access to miscarriage management and pregnancy criminalization
By TESSA STUART
K
RISTA HARDING’S daughter was eight weeks old when that police cruiser pulled behind
her on the interstate and hit the lights in September 2019. She called her boss at the Little
Caesars in Pinson, Alabama, where she’d just been promoted to manager: I’m going to be a
little late, but I’m coming in! Don’t panic. Harding’s registration tag was expired. She figured
the officer would write her a ticket and she’d be on her way, but when he came back after
running her driver’s license, he had handcuffs out.
There was a felony warrant out for her arrest, he said: “Chemical endangerment of a child.” Harding
used her most patient customer-service tone to ask the officer if he’d please check again. But there was
no mistake, the cop confirmed: He was taking her to the Etowah County Detention Center, almost an
hour’s drive away.
“I’m in the back of the cop car just bawling my eyes out, like, ugly-face-snot-bubbles crying,” Harding
remembers. She was worried about being away from her newborn, and she was confused: Chemical en-
dangerment of a child? “I think of somebody cooking meth with a baby on their hip,” she says.
She’s right to think that: The Alabama law, passed in 2006, was intended to target those who expose
children to toxic chemicals, or worse, explosions, while manufacturing methamphetamine in ad-hoc
home labs.
Harding says it took at least eight hours to be booked into a cell that night, and it was more than a week
before she was finally allowed to see a judge. She was still leaking breast milk, and desperately missing
her two daughters. Her family wasn’t allowed to bring her clean underwear, so every day she washed her
one pair, saturated with menstrual blood, in the cell sink, then hung them to dry.
Harding says she eventually learned the warrant for her arrest had been issued because of a urine
test taken at a doctor’s visit early in her pregnancy. Sitting alone in her cell, she conjured a vague mem-
ory of her OB-GYN warning her local authorities had begun to crack down on weed. The comment had
struck her as odd at the time: Nine years earlier, when she was pregnant with her first child, the same
doctor at the same hospital had told Harding, who’d smoked both pot and cigarettes before she was preg-
Illustration by ANA JUAN
30
Natıonal
Affaırs
nant, that she’d rather Harding kick the nicotine distinguishable from a living child — in a decision Or in Alabama, where, in 2019, Marshae Jones
than the weed. (Studies are unequivocal about that was responsible for shutting down IVF clinics walked into the Pleasant Grove Police Department
the fact that cigarettes contribute to adverse preg- across the state. with her six-year-old daughter expecting to be in-
nancy outcomes, but the research on weed is less The ruling was a triumph for the fetal-person- terviewed for a police investigation. Months earli-
conclusive, with some doctors arguing it at least hood movement, a nationwide crusade to endow er, Jones, four and a half months pregnant at the
has therapeutic benefits, like helping with morn- fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses with con- time, had been shot by her co-worker during a dis-
ing sickness.) stitutional rights. Personhood has been the Holy pute. In the hospital after the shooting, Jones un-
But in the years between her first child and her Grail for the anti-abortion movement since Roe derwent an emergency C-section; her baby, whom
second, something had changed in certain parts v. Wade was decided in 1973, but outlawing abor- she’d named Malaysia, did not survive. Rather
of Alabama. In Etowah County, in 2013, the sher- tion — at any stage of pregnancy, for any reason than indicting the shooter, though, a grand jury
iff, the district attorney, and the head of the local — is just the start of what legal recognition of em- indicted Jones, who they decided “intentionally”
child-welfare agency held a press conference to bryos’ rights could mean for anyone who can get caused the death of her “unborn baby” because
announce they intended to aggressively enforce pregnant. Experts have long warned that elevating she allegedly picked a fight “knowing she was five
that 2006 law. Instead of going after the manu- an embryo’s legal status effectively strips the per- months pregnant.” The charges were ultimately
facturers of meth, though, they planned to tar- son whose body that embryo occupies of her own dismissed, but Jones’ lawyer says her record still
get pregnant women who used virtually any sub- rights the moment she becomes pregnant. shows the arrest, and Jones, who lost her job after
stance they deemed harmful to a developing fetus. Across the country, this theory has led to sit- the incident, struggled to find work after her case
“If a baby is born with a controlled-substance uations like in Texas, where a hospital kept a attracted national attention.
dependency, the mother is going to jail,” then- brain-dead woman alive for almost two months — The threat this ideology poses to American
Sheriff Todd Entrekin said at the time. Police against her own advanced directive and the wish- women is not contained to Alabama: Recognition
weren’t required to establish that a child was born es of her family — in deference to a state law that of fetal personhood is an explicit policy goal of the
with a chemical dependency, though — or even prevents doctors from removing a pregnant per- national Republican Party, and it has been since
that a fetus experienced any harm — a drug test, a son from life support. (The hospital only relent- the 1980s. The GOP platform calls for amending
confession, or just an accusation of substance use ed after the woman’s husband sued for “cruel the U.S. Constitution to recognize the rights of em-
during pregnancy was enough to arrest women and obscene mutilation of a corpse.”) Or in New bryos, and representatives in Congress have intro-
for a first offense that carries a maximum sen- Hampshire, where a court allowed a woman who duced legislation that would recognize life begins
tence of 10 years. One public defender would later was hit by a car while seven months pregnant to at conception hundreds of times — as recently as
call these “unwinnable cases.” be sued by her future child for negligence because this current session, when the Life at Conception
Over the following decade, Etowah County im- she failed to use “a designated crosswalk.” Or in Act attracted the co-sponsorship of 127 sitting Re-
prisoned hundreds of mothers — some of whom Washington, D.C., where a terminally ill cancer publican members of Congress.
were detained, before trial, for the rest of their patient, 26 weeks pregnant, requested palliative It wouldn’t take an act of Congress for the fe-
pregnancies, inside one of the most brutal and care, but was instead subjected to court-ordered tal-personhood movement to clinch a federal
inhumane prisons in the country, denied access cesarean section. Her baby survived for just two victory, either. If a case were brought to the Su-
to prenatal care and adequate nutrition, they say hours; she died two days later. preme Court, a conservative majority might look
— in the name of protecting their children from to state laws treating embryos as people around
harm. the country and conclude that America has a “his-
Etowah County officials didn’t come up with tory and tradition” of recognizing fetal rights. If
this idea themselves. They borrowed it from a dis- they do, women all across the United States would
trict attorney who began testing the limits of the be in the same position that women in Alabama
chemical-endangerment law years earlier in a dif- are in today.
ferent part of the state. Steve Marshall’s theory —
O
which essentially treats the uterus as a home meth N THE FIRST anniversary of the Dobbs de-
lab, and the fetus a living child — was appealed cision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling end-
to the Alabama Supreme Court. In 2013, the jus- ing a federal right to abortion — exactly
tices declared the term “child” included embry- one year after Alabama’s total ban on abortion
os at any stage of development, marking the first went into effect — some of the most powerful anti-
time a state Supreme Court anywhere in the Unit- abortion organizations in the country rallied on
ed States recognized that embryos and fetuses had the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington,
legal rights before the point of viability. D.C., to reaffirm a full-throated commitment to
In the past two decades, Alabama has become their long-term project: securing recognition in
the undisputed champion of arresting pregnant the U.S. Constitution that fertilized eggs are peo-
women for actions that wouldn’t be considered ple with full legal rights.
crimes if they weren’t pregnant: 649 arrests be- Speaking to the crowd that day, Lila Rose,
tween 2006 and 2022, almost as many arrests as the founder of the anti-abortion group Live Ac-
documented in all other states combined, accord- tion, called it a “tragic contradiction” that even
ing to advocacy group Pregnancy Justice, which as American society has become more enlight-
collected the statistics. Across the U.S., the vast ened and advanced, it has continued to deny legal
majority of women arrested on these charges rights “to one group of human beings solely based
COURTESY OF KRISTA HARDING
were too poor to afford a lawyer, and a quarter of DETAINED WITHOUT WARNING
on their location: the womb.”
cases were based on the use of a legal substance, Krista Harding was arrested after a drug test Abortion has been legislated here for 200 years,
like prescription medication. taken at her doctor’s office was shared with but the idea that a fetus or embryo deserves the
authorities without her knowledge, she says.
Today, Marshall is the attorney general of Ala- same rights as a person is relatively new, says legal
bama, and just a few months ago, the state’s Su- historian and UC Davis law professor Mary Ziegler.
preme Court used the same logic — that life begins The movement dates back to the 1960s, when two
at conception, therefore an embryo is legally in- events unfolded in parallel: the Civil Rights Move-

manity of a particular group of people, it’s some-
thing that’s not lost in the muscle memory of
those who legislate and of the courts in that state.”
In those states, Goodwin notes, there was never
a reckoning of what it meant to deny rights to
whole swaths of people. It was largely federal in-
terventions, like the Civil Rights Act, the Voting
Rights Act, and Roe v. Wade, that offered a mea-
sure of protection — if only temporarily.
“In Alabama,” Goodwin says, “the perfect storm
emerged.” It started with prosecutions pioneered
by Steve Marshall, and blessed by the state’s Su-
preme Court. Then, in 2018, Alabama became the
first state in the country to pass an amendment to
its constitution recognizing fetal personhood. “It
is the public policy of this state to recognize and
support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights
of unborn children, including the right to life,” it
declares.
With the federal protections of Roe v. Wade still
firmly in place in 2018, a majority of voters were
willing to support that sentiment. “When the
Sanctity of Life Amendment was voted on, people
didn’t quite ever think that Dobbs would happen,”
says JaTaune Bosby Gilchrist, executive director of
THE FIGHT TO PROTECT IVF the ACLU of Alabama. “For us, it was something
Doctors Mamie McLean, Michael Allemand, and Janet Bouknight (from left) react after the we always knew would happen, and something
Senate passed a bill protecting those who provide IVF services.
people had been working to combat for the bet-
ter part of a decade.” Only now, she says, are peo-
ple across the state starting to realize the impact.
As I traveled around Alabama this spring, 11
years after the state Supreme Court first recog-
ment, and a campaign to repeal state-level restric- Human Life Amendment, and though it failed to nized fetal personhood and six years since the vot-
tions on abortion. make it to a floor vote that session, it would be ers of this state gave it their stamp of approval, I
Taking inspiration from Black Americans’ fight reproposed more than 300 times in the follow- spoke to people whose lives have been turned up-
for equal rights, the anti-abortion movement ing decades. side down by practices and policies that have long
began thinking of its own crusade as a fight for By 1980, the idea had been fully embraced by since ceased being hypothetical legal arguments.
equality. “The argument that the unborn was the the Republican Party: Ronald Reagan’s GOP adopt- These are women and families navigating a reali-
ultimate victim of discrimination in America was ed it into the party platform — where it remains to ty that anti-abortion activists spent decades pains-
really resonant with a lot of white Americans, a this day — and in 1983, the Republican-majority takingly laying the groundwork for.
lot of socially conservative Americans — and it was Congress voted, for the first and only time, on the “We talk about these as unintended conse-
vague enough that people who disagreed about idea of adding a personhood amendment to the quences,” Bosby Gilchrist says. “But, in reality,
stuff like feminism, the welfare state, children U.S. Constitution. That vote failed. these were always intended consequences.”
born outside of marriage, the Civil Rights Move- After their 1983 defeat, activists turned their
D
ment” could find common ground, Ziegler says. attention away from the U.S. Capitol and toward R. MICHAEL ALLEMAND was on his way
By the time the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. the states, where they sought to insert the idea of home from a weekend away in Tennes-
Wade in 1973, the idea that a fetus was entitled to fetal personhood into as many state laws as pos- see in February when he got a text. “Hey,
constitutional protections was mainstream enough sible: everything from legislation creating tax de- does everybody know about this?” one of his col-
to be a central piece of Texas’ argument that “Jane ductions for fetuses or declaring them people leagues at the fertility clinic wrote to their group
Roe” did not have a right to get an abortion. for census-taking purposes, to expanding child- thread. She shared a link to a story about a ruling
The justices rejected that idea. “The word ‘per- endangerment and -neglect laws. just issued by the Alabama Supreme Court, con-
son,’ as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does Activists pursued this agenda everywhere, but cerning another clinic, on the other side of the
not include the unborn,” Justice Harry Blackmun they were most successful at advancing it in states state, in Mobile.
wrote. But he gave the movement a cause to rally that share certain qualities. “You could draw a Three years earlier, at the height of the pan-
behind for the next half-century by adding: “If this Venn diagram of American slavery and see that demic, a patient had slipped through an unlocked
suggestion of personhood is established, [Roe’s] what’s happening today is in common in those door into a medical laboratory, pried open a
case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to states,” says Michele Goodwin, a Georgetown Uni- cryogenic-storage tank fitted with monitors, and
life would then be guaranteed specifically by the versity law professor and author of the book Po- pulled out a tube submerged in liquid nitrogen at
Amendment.” licing the Womb. “Some would say, ‘Well, OK, how about negative 320 degrees. The patient dropped
Making that happen became the anti-abortion is that relevant?’ Slavery itself was explicitly about the tube, and several straws of human embryos it
BUTCH DILL/AP IMAGES
movement’s primary focus from that moment on. denying personal autonomy, denying the human- contained, to the ground. (That’s roughly the ver-
One week after Roe was decided, a U.S. congress- ity of Black people. Now, clearly, these laws affect sion of events that parties to the case have agreed
man first proposed amending the Constitution to women of all ethnicities. But the point is: If you’re upon at least.)
guarantee “the right to life to the unborn, the ill, in a constitutional democracy and you found a The three couples whose embryos were de-
the aged, or the incapacitated.” It was called the way to avoid recognizing the constitutional hu- stroyed that day sued for negligence, claiming the

Natıonal
Affaırs
clinic and the hospital did not properly store and Spencer Goidel’s wife, Gabby, began her first With days to spare, Gabby persuaded a clinic in
protect their embryos. Then they went further, course of injections — one round of which runs Temple, Texas, to take them; the couple left Ala-
asserting the clinic and the hospital were liable $4,000 — the same day the state Supreme Court’s bama that very night.
under an 1872 law that allows parents to seek dam- decision came out, though the couple didn’t know
T
ages for the wrongful death of a child. it at the time. By then, they’d already invested HE ALABAMA State Senate’s health commit-
In an 8-1 ruling, Alabama’s Supreme Court up- $20,000 out-of-pocket in their fertility treatment, tee holds its meetings in a drab, pink, flu-
held the couples’ claim: Their embryos — “extra- a fairly typical cost for one IVF cycle. (On aver- orescent-lit Eighties-era conference room.
uterine children,” in the justices’ words — quali- age, it takes two and a half cycles to become preg- On a Tuesday morning in March, that’s where
fied as people, entitling them to compensation. nant.) Gabby was only a few days away from re- eight men and one woman sat around a horse-
“Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed with- trieval when she got a call from Alabama Fertility shoe table, searching for a loophole that would
out incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views Specialists saying the clinic was pausing services allow Alabama families to regain access to state-
the destruction of His image as an affront to Him- while it tried to understand its legal exposure fol- of-the-art reproductive technology, without con-
self,” Tom Parker, chief justice of the court, wrote lowing the court’s decision. tradicting the state Supreme Court’s ruling that an
in a concurring opinion. Gabby and Spencer frantically called clinics embryo is a person with legal rights. It had been
Allemand read the news story, then the decision looking for any facility that could complete their 18 days since doctors were forced to suspend IVF
itself, slack-jawed. “It was literally unbelievable,” retrieval on schedule. They had a hard deadline: services in Alabama.
he says. “They invented terminology: ‘embryonic It takes one to two weeks for the eggs to mature The state isn’t the first to confront this problem.
children,’ ‘cryogenic nursery,’ the scripture pas- to the point they can be removed from the ova- Other governments have grappled with regulating
sages.… You can read it and tell that they have no ries. If they aren’t retrieved roughly 36 hours after IVF from a “pro-life” point-of-view. “I’ve looked
idea what we do — no understanding of the reali- the final injection, they’ll be shed or reabsorbed. at Louisiana, I’ve looked at Italy.… I want to make
ties of what takes place in this building.” “If you call a clinic and say you’re in the middle sure we get it right,” one senator offered.
Treating infertility is an intricate, expensive, of egg retrieval, and ask if you can be let in, they A fertility doctor from Birmingham, watching
and incredibly time-sensitive process. It starts say ‘no,’ ” Spencer says, laughing ruefully in retro- from the audience, just shook her head. Italy’s
with tests (sperm counts and motility, ovarian respect. “They treat you like you’re a crazy person.” Law 40 banned freezing embryos, and required
serve, tests to detect various hormones) and im- Before they started IVF, Gabby had miscarried that any successfully fertilized eggs be implanted.
aging (of the ovaries, uterus, and fallopian tubes). three times. “Each time, we got to see the heart- Most of the law’s provisions were repealed within
If the results show a patient is a candidate for IVF, beat on the ultrasound,” Spencer says. “Going five years because of a decrease in the IVF success
she can prepare for egg retrieval: eight to 14 days through infertility, and deciding to start IVF, that’s rate and an increased risk of pregnancy compli-
of injecting hormones to stimulate the production already such an anxiety-filled process. This just cations. In Louisiana, meanwhile, clinics have to
of as many eggs as possible. made it so much worse.” ship hundreds of embryos to out-of-state storage
facilities every month because of a 1986 state law
that bans the destruction of IVF embryos.
In the hallway outside, just before the meeting
began, Corinn O’Brien briefed a small group of
IVF patients there to lobby, telling them who to
thank for their support, who to press for a stron-
ger commitment, and what language to insist be
included in any bill to persuade the clinics to re-
open and their suppliers to resume operations.
O’Brien has the warm smile, meticulous orga-
nization, and effortless crowd command of your
favorite elementary school teacher, which is what
she was before she became an advocate working
on education reform at the Alabama State House.
After three years of trying to get pregnant, includ-
ing a miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy, she
finally had a successful embryo transfer in late
January. She was at her six-week scan — the ultra-
sound that confirms a heartbeat — the day the Su-
preme Court issued its ruling on IVF.
At that appointment, O’Brien remembers, “I did
not get 100 percent positive news.” All of the mea-
surements looked all right, but her doctor said the
pregnancy might not be viable. “To get that news,
and then later that night to hear that I might not
have access to IVF?… I was pretty shocked, and
© MICKEY WELSH/USA TODAY NETWORK
kind of stunned for several days,” she says.

Six days later, O’Brien drafted an email to law-
makers about protecting fertility medicine in Al-
TAKING A STAND
abama, and dropped the text into a Google Doc.
Education-reform advocate Corinn O’Brien used her Alabama State House connections to
press for IVF protections during her own struggle to get pregnant. She sent it to 50 friends, and asked them to share
it with 10 friends of their own. By the end of that
day, she heard, the Republican speaker of the
House was receiving an email every two minutes
demanding lawmakers work to restore IVF access.

The next week, more than 300 people, orga-
nized through O’Brien’s Google Doc with help
from RESOLVE: The National Infertility Associ-
ation, had shown up in Montgomery in bright-
orange T-shirts that read “Fight for Alabama Fami-
lies” to press for a bill that would reopen facilities.
It was the largest showing anyone could recall see-
ing at the State House in a very long time.
Alison Mollman, a lawyer who lives in Mont-
gomery, was there. For queer couples like Moll-
man and her partner, assisted reproduction is one
of the primary options they have to create a fam-
ily. Since the Dobbs decision, Mollman has had
three miscarriages.
Mollman’s first two pregnancies resulted in a
“blighted ovum,” when an egg implants in the
uterus but doesn’t form an embryo. Both times,
she says, her health care providers said there was
nothing they could do to help, and sent her home
to pass the tissue on her own. It’s common else-
where to offer a “D&C” — dilation and curettage,
a type of abortion — or the abortion pill to reduce
the risk of infection or sepsis, but Mollman wasn’t
offered either. “That’s when I got angry, because
basically in any other state I would have so many
other options,” she says. (Alabama’s abortion ban
allows exceptions for the life of the mother and for
lethal fetal abnormalities, but it is up to a doctor
to decide who is eligible.)
Roughly one in eight pregnancies will end in REAL-LIFE REPERCUSSIONS
JaTaune Bosby Gilchrist, executive director of the ACLU of Alabama, says that “in reality,
miscarriage, but that number is higher for IVF pa- these were always intended consequences” of fetal-personhood legislation.
tients — one study has pegged it at one in three —
and it increases as a woman gets older. It was clear
speaking to patients and doctors at the State House
that they felt the clock ticking with every day that
passed, and it was equally clear that not every leg- proved by both houses and signed by Republican cardiac activity. She was admitted to the hospital
islator felt the urgency as acutely as they did. Gov. Kay Ivey. and underwent a D&C the same day.
When Republican Rep. Ernie Yarbrough took The morning after it became law, O’Brien tells
K
to the House floor that day, he declared, “My con- me, “Everyone is feeling exhausted. This has RISTA HARDING was just trying to get to
science is absolutely on fire about this issue. If been a grueling couple of weeks.” She’s glad that work the day she was pulled over, hand-
you’ve seen the famous TV series entitled Reach- friends of hers — women across the state who’d cuffed, and taken to the Etowah County
er, you will be familiar with one of his most fa- been injecting themselves with hormones for Detention Center with no warning. Six days after
mous lines: ‘In an investigation, details matter.’ I, weeks, unsure of whether they would be able her arrest, she was finally assigned a public de-
like many of you, probably, am not an expert on to move forward — could proceed with embryo fender and given two options: She could either
IVF.… But if we had to be experts on everything, transfers scheduled as soon as that morning. “To enter a 90-day inpatient drug-rehab program that
we wouldn’t pass any laws.” me, that is truly a victory,” O’Brien says. But, she would keep her away from her new baby for three
Yarbrough went on to quote Vanilla Ice, urging adds, “the bill that passed is not perfect — we rec- months, or submit to a yearlong drug-court pro-
his fellow lawmakers to “stop, collaborate, and ognize that.” gram. She chose the latter, and the obligations
listen.” If the suspension of IVF services “must The legislation doesn’t change the legal status it involved — classes, meetings, mandatory drug
continue until we determine what is moral and of embryos under Alabama law; they’re still con- tests an hour’s drive each way from her home —
righteous and life-preserving, is this not worth a sidered children for the purposes of the state’s almost cost her her job.
pause?” he asked. wrongful-death statute. Instead, it provides broad The only thing she remembers thinking is:
By that time, conservative groups like the Her- immunity from civil lawsuits and criminal charges “This is what the judge says I had to do. I’m gonna
itage Foundation, Eagle Forum of Alabama, and for IVF doctors, and more limited protections for do it because I don’t have the money to fight it.”
the Alabama Policy Institute were mobilizing to suppliers, in the event that an embryo is damaged Harding is one of more than 250 pregnant
oppose IVF protections. The American Action or destroyed. There are real concerns the law, if women and new moms who were booked on
Fund sent texts declaring that lawmakers who challenged, could be struck down by the state Su- chemical-endangerment charges at the Etowah
supported reinstating IVF in Alabama were vot- preme Court. County Detention Center between 2015 and
ing to protect those “who intentionally [cause] the O’Brien still wants a longer-term solution. 2023, according to an exhaustive accounting by
death of an unborn child.” She’s seen polling showing 67 percent of Republi- AL.com’s Amy Yurkanin, a reporter who has cov-
LYNSEY WEATHERSPOON
Those efforts were, largely, too late. It took an- can-primary voters would support a constitutional ered Etowah County’s pregnancy criminalization
other several days of behind-the-scenes wrangling amendment to protect IVF. She plans to press on issue extensively.
and late-night calls on speakerphone with com- with that fight, as she starts her own fertility pro- Another was arrested when police found a
mittee members, but seven days after IVF advo- cess over again. Two days after the IVF immunity small amount of marijuana in her car during a
cates descended on the State House, a bill was ap- bill passed, O’Brien found out her fetus had lost traffic stop; she was held for three [Cont. on 76]

Natıonal
Affaırs
The Abortion-Clinic Defenders

Aren’t Going Anywhere
Violence against abortion providers has continued to rise following the
‘Roe’ reversal, but those facing the protesters are standing firm
By CT JONES
I
T WAS JUNE 24, 2022, and Karen Musick was except to save the life of the mother in a “medi- not alone. A term first used by activist groups
working at Little Rock Family Planning Ser- cal emergency.” For patients inside, doctors wrote during clinic bombings after Roe v. Wade, clinic
vices, the last abortion clinic in Arkansas. down information for clinics in other states that defenders physically block protesters from sight,
She was guiding patients into the clinic were still open. try to drown them out, and in some cases, actively
when she heard a protester scream out the news. Outside, one family with seven children confront masses of anti-abortion activists.
That’s how she found out the Supreme Court had danced in the street and sang praises to “[Clinic-focused attacks] began [with]
issued a ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson; the court de- God while employees and clinic escorts LAST LINE OF DEFENSE this idea of ‘If we can’t end abortion in
on shift helped despondent patients to In 2020, many saw clinic
termined that the Constitution doesn’t protect the the courts, we can punish people at the
defense on social media
right to an abortion. their cars. The doors shut for the last apps and decided to join place where they have abortions,’ ” says
COURTESY OF CHARLOTTE FOR CHOICE
“We all knew it was coming,” Musick says now, time. The protesters went home. But in to help escort patients Lauren Rankin, a former clinic escort
two years later. She’s sitting in the clinic’s old of- in the parking lot, a large group in rain- to appointments. and author of Bodies on the Line. Pro-
fice, surrounded by boxes piled high. “I don’t bow-striped vests gathered. choice activists, spearheaded by Black
know how you stop [the tears]. The whole day “The escorts started showing up,” says Musick, female leaders and queer-rights groups, quickly
was tears.” tears still fresh in her eyes. moved to defense, staging distractions in front of
The clinic was forced to shut down that day. Ar- Soon, Little Rock Family Planning Services clinics, targeting demonstrators, and even taking
kansas is one of several states that had near-total would no longer be a clinic — but the clinic de- punches meant for providers.
abortion bans triggered by the landmark ruling — fenders were still there and determined to con- In 2020, the advent of social media apps
meaning no abortions were allowed in the state tinue their fight for abortion access. And they’re brought a fresh wave of support for clinic de-

fense. Disillusioned by the idea of only using vot- unicorn costume nicknamed “Unibort” — a sort repeat offenders, especially those who get violent
ing to fight for abortion access, many groups, of unofficial mascot of the group. or cause disruptions.
once considered simple counterprotest forc- But while the group engages with protesters In Duluth, Minnesota, the We Health Clinic
es, coordinated directly with clinics. Now, as a with a bit of silliness to poke holes in their messag- started using TikTok after the Dobbs ruling to give
post-Dobbs world continues to see state legisla- ing, the SWANs have noted the post-Dobbs world people a glimpse into the clinic-escort world. What
tion strip away abortion access and clinic doors has only increased antagonism. they found was that even as a non-engagement
close nationwide, clinic defenders face a brand- “What we’re now seeing is less of ‘We care clinic — one with a policy not to acknowledge or
new challenge: anti-abortion activists embold- about both the woman and the child.’ It is now antagonize protesters — simply filming protesters
ened by sweeping state bans. According to the ‘These women are harlots who are willfully com- changed their behavior. “Our anti-abortion pro-
National Abortion Federation, violence against mitting murder, and they also need to go to pris- testers outside film our patients coming into our
clinics and abortion providers has continued to on,’ ” Tanya says. “There’s a rise in this abolition- clinic, and so we wanted to give them a little taste
rise following the Roe rever- ist kind of sect that is now very of their own medicine,” says Paulina Briggs, exec-
sal. In 2022, there were four ar- much focused on ensuring that utive director of We Health. Once the recordings
sons, 20 clinic invasions, and
“Any state law that says anyone who is intent on obtain- started drawing shocked eyes on TikTok, “we saw
a 20 percent increase in death they own you after six ing an abortion is viewed as that they really reined in some of their more prob-
threats against abortion provid- homicidal and is incarcerated. lematic tactics because they knew that they were
ers. Before Dobbs, the last re-
weeks is devastating.… Any kind of state law that says being watched by a lot of people,” Briggs adds.
ported anthrax scare involving It’s only steadied our they own you after six weeks is Not all clinic-defense programs have been able
abortion clinics was in 2011; in devastating to the general com- to adapt. The Jackson Women’s Health Organiza-
2022, there were four. Stricter
resolve — we’re going munity. It’s only steadied our tion — the abortion clinic at the heart of the land-
state abortion laws means in- to keep standing resolve — we’re going to keep mark Supreme Court decision — was for years the
creased attacks have concen- standing strong and fighting it.” home of the Pink House Defenders, a volunteer
trated on a dwindling number
strong and fighting it.” For the past two years, Flor- program dedicated to helping the Mississippi clin-
of clinics. But the select groups ida was a refuge for patients in ic. Kim Gibson and Derenda Hancock — co-found-
of abortion activists left aren’t letting the pressure the region who could still access care up to 15 ers of We Engage, the group’s nonprofit face — co-
get to them. And you know what they say about weeks there, but on May 1, a new ban went into ordinated daily shifts at the height of the clinic’s
the best defense. effect dramatically reducing access across the activity in 2021, placing volunteer defenders as
That day in June, Musick left the clinic and South. Today, Florida clinics like the Orlando physical barriers in front of protesters. And once
joined the escorts, which included her daughter. Women’s Center can only offer services up to six Jackson Women’s became the center of the Su-
Musick, 68, is a co-founder of the Arkansas Abor- weeks of gestation — before many women even preme Court case, their jobs became even more
tion Support Network, a nonprofit that began as a know they’re pregnant. Any patient seeking an important, as media attention made the driveway
volunteer group for clinic defense in 2013 and ex- abortion beyond that point will now be referred and sidewalks surrounding “the Pink House” a
panded into Arkansas’ first abortion fund in 2016. to providers in other states. minefield for incoming patients. “If the clinic was
The group provided defense services until 2022, With more patients needing to travel post- open, we were there,” Gibson says.
when Dobbs closed its clinic doors. Dobbs, the tension at the remaining clinics has But days after Dobbs, the clinic closed its doors
“That day I didn’t take off my vest until proba- been heightened. “Once people started coming for good. Now, what was once the last abortion
bly one in the morning,” she says. “We had a rally to us from other states, it only angered them fur- clinic in Mississippi is an upscale furniture consign-
at the Capitol. A lot of people who were there, we ther,” says Shannon Bauerle, the executive direc- ment store. Struck by the defeat, the Pink House
went out to dinner, drank, cursed, swore, and de- tor for the Charlotte for Choice advocacy group, Defenders quietly disbanded. “We had lost on
cided ‘We’re not stopping.’ ” about anti-abortion protesters in North Carolina. many levels, and it was well-known by antis and
Like many volunteers, Bauerle’s work began after such, so it was quite demoralizing,” Gibson says.
Y
OU NEVER KNOW what you might see out- a scary encounter during her own abortion. “I re- “We’re quote-unquote back to living normal lives.”
side the Orlando Women’s Center in Flori- member having a blanket over my head because For Musick and the Arkansas Abortion Support
da. The one-story brick building blends in I was so scared,” Bauerle says. “They were bang- Network, the fear was that the closure of their Lit-
with its neighbors, except for the ever-rotating cast ing on my partner’s car when we were driving in, tle Rock clinic would prevent volunteers from con-
of characters who crowd the sidewalks around its and it was absolutely terrifying.” She says violent tinuing their work. But, in fact, it’s jump-started
entrance. threats have only grown with each restriction. renewed interest in supporting it. “We had so
“Playing the latest Lil Wayne while you’re about Clinic defenders often straddle a thin legal many people wanting to help initially after Dobbs
to go murder a baby?” a protester yells, while a line while trying to protect patients. Most states that we didn’t have jobs for them,” Musick says.
woman blocks him with a pink umbrella. Around allow protesting on public property, which can “We couldn’t figure out what to have them do.”
him, others wave purple “Do Not Murder” signs. pack sidewalks outside of clinics. At North Caro- Their clinic defense has turned to a health-
When Florida resident Tanya was scrolling on Tik- lina’s A Preferred Women’s Health Center, the di- based offense. The group founded the YOU Cen-
Tok one day, it was a scene just like this one that vide is both ideological and physical, as protest- ter, a pregnancy resource center that operates in
persuaded her to become a clinic defender. ers are split down the middle by a public road ever the same building as the old clinic. While it can’t
“I immediately shut off [the app] and said, ‘OK, since an anti-abortion group purchased a plot of provide abortions, it offers free services, including
I’m going down there,’ ” she says. land next door. On one such day, a woman yelling contraceptives, pregnancy tests, and STI testing.
The abortion defenders of the Orlando center about “instruments of death” heading for fetuses There’s no blueprint for what the fight for
refer to themselves as SWAN (Stand With Abortion is only drowned out by the shouts of another pro- abortion rights will look like next. As more clin-
Now). Even with mass reporting and constant at- tester almost prostrate on the sidewalk, wailing ics across the country close their doors, clinic de-
tempts to ban its accounts, SWAN remains a sta- prayers and cries of “Oh, Lord! Oh, Jesus!” fense groups will remain in flux. But “the passion
ple on the app. Some days its work means putting Harassment and doxing come with the territo- has never dissipated,” Musick says. “You would
bodies between people rushing to appointments. ry, too. But they say posting online has become be hard-pressed to find any state that knew exact-
Other days, it means Tanya and others film viral a major component of their work these days. De- ly what they were going to see.
TikTok dances on the lawn, place cameras near fenders film antagonists and use social media to “I’m so proud of what we’ve done so far. All of
protesters, or sometimes just frolic around in a connect with clinics across state lines and identify us wish we could do more.”

Natıonal
Affaırs
“I Have a Lot of Hope”
Life as an
Abortion Doula
The fall of ‘Roe v. Wade’ was just the latest in a
long line of attacks on reproductive rights in the South.
Ash Williams is fighting to make access easier
By MEAGAN JORDAN
I
N 2016, ASH WILLIAMS became pregnant for the first time. Williams wants to be a parent even-
tually — but he wasn’t ready for a child then. He didn’t know much about what an abortion en-
tailed, and he needed a ride, so he called up a friend who drove him. When they got to the
clinic, Williams, who is trans, remembers the people working there didn’t care enough to get
his name right — using, instead, the name on his license. Never mind asking about pronouns.
“Working with the actual provider was really fucked up, too,” he says. “I just remember he
didn’t say one word to me, and I felt sad about that.”
After the procedure, Williams’ friend, who also happens to be trans, took over. Without asking what
Williams needed, his friend purchased Maxi Pads for aftercare bleeding and cooked him a pot of collard
greens with ham hocks to combat the low iron levels the pregnancy caused. “She cooked it in my house
and didn’t leave for like a day or two, and I remember thinking, ‘Wow, you didn’t have to do that,’ ” Wil-
liams recalls. “I remember feeling like I didn’t want to be alone, but I also wasn’t using the words ‘Can
you be with me?’ ”
Today, the 31-year-old Williams is an abortion doula, doing professionally what that friend did for him
back then.
When most folks hear the term “doula,” they likely think of the person hired to give support and guid-
ance during labor, suggesting breathing exercises and comfortable positions. Or maybe they’re thinking
of a postpartum doula, someone who helps a new parent sent home with their newborn. But Williams
supports patients who choose to not remain pregnant.
Photograph by KENNEDI CARTER
38
Natıonal
Affaırs
DOULA
For Williams, being a doula requires showing

up physically for clients, accompanying them to
How ‘Dobbs’ Changed Everything
procedures and aiding in aftercare, ensuring they
T
have medication and holistic outlets including HE LANDSCAPE OF reproductive rights in the U.S. has changed dramatically since the Supreme
journals to help them monitor their pain and man- Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022. Today,
age their range of emotions. But being a doula also tens of millions live in states that ban or restrict abortion, pregnant people travel farther and
means providing other forms of support that can spend more money to access the procedure, and doctors are avoiding practicing in states that restrict
be as simple as going on Instagram to raise funds care — or where laws are unclear enough to make providing care seem dangerous.
for someone’s procedure. But not all of the changes are what conservatives intended when they stacked the Supreme Court
With debates swirling around reproductive with anti-choice judges: $37 million in abortion funds were disbursed the year after Dobbs was decided.
rights in the U.S. right now, abortion doulas like And last year was the first time that there has been more than a million abortions provided in the U.S.
Williams have often been left out of conversations health care system since 2012. This was in large part thanks to the FDA increasing access to mifepris-
regarding care, even within reproductive spaces. tone, otherwise known as the “abortion pill,” which is currently available by mail — but access to that
“Abortion and birth often get siloed, and we’ve medication also hangs in the balance as SCOTUS weighs in later this year. Here’s a rundown of abortion
been made to think that these things are a binary, care by the numbers today, two years after Dobbs. HANNAH MURPHY WINTER
but they’re really not,” he tells me. “For me, abor-
tion is a type of birth.”
Since the 2022 overturning of Roe, more prac-
titioners are receiving training. “We’ve for sure B E FOR E D OB B S A F T E R D OB B S
seen an uptick in the number of doulas who are
joining already having an abortion-doula certif- Number of women who live in a state that
icate,” says Brandie Bishop, a doula of 13 years bans or restricts abortion in 2020 vs. 2024 0 25,000,000
and CEO of the National Black Doula Association.
“These are new certifications,” Bishop says. “Peo-
ple who have been a part of our membership for
Number of abortions in 2020 vs. 2023
930,160 1,026,690
years have [now] added this certification.”
The NBDA serves as a national database for peo-
ple researching doulas and a resource for potential
and current doulas to access courses and mentor-
Portion of abortions that were medication
abortions in 2020 vs. 2023 53% 63%
ships that center on birth work. The organiza-
tion is currently designing a dedicated abortion- Estimated annual number of self-
doula curriculum. “A lot of doulas have become managed abortions 11,000 38,000
much more aware of the need for resources in
this space,” Bishop says. “People are not becom- Percentage of the population that lives more
ing certified [just] within the abortion space. A lot than 200 miles from an abortion provider Less than 1% 14%
of Black and brown doulas are working with mid-
wives or their community, getting more informa-
Average distance an American would need
tion to know how to work with families.”
When the Dobbs v. Jackson decision came down, to travel for an abortion 25 miles 86 miles
a trigger law went into effect in Williams’ home
state of North Carolina, reducing the window in Proportion of patients traveling out of
which a person could access an abortion at that state for abortion care 1 in 10 1 in 5
time from 24 weeks to 20. But it remained less re-
strictive than other states in the South, and North Plane, bus, train trips funded by the National
Carolina saw an increase of nearly 8,000 abor- Abortion Federation year before/after Dobbs 293 982
tions in the nine months after Dobbs, according
to one report.
“Where I live, we’ve been aware of these post-
Roe realities that a lot of people are just getting hip
Average cost of traveling for an abortion
> $1,000 > $1,400
to since Dobbs,” Williams says. “We had to figure
out how to get people to places when they didn’t
have a clinic where they lived. We were figuring
Percentage of Americans who believed it
should be easier to have abortion access 26% 34%
out how to help someone get an abortion when
they couldn’t afford one. In the South, we are Amount disbursed by abortion funds the
uniquely positioned to answer that call to increas- year before vs. the year after Dobbs $19,600,000 $37,000,000
ing access within this criminalized landscape be-
cause of what we have always had to navigate in
Percentage of Americans who thought
terms of restrictions and bans.”
overturning Roe was a bad idea 63% 61%
BIRTH WORK, ESPECIALLY WITHIN Black com-
munities throughout the South, has a deep his- States with an amendment to protect
tory that’s rooted in the practices [Cont. on 78] abortion on the ballot in 2020 vs. 2024 0 13
COMMENTARY
Rebranding Pro-Life
Their abortion legislation is costing them at the ballot, so Republicans are
trying sneaky new tactics to push through policies Americans don’t want
By JESSICA VALENTI
A
MERICANS DON’T WANT abortion to be banned. In fact, they bare- It makes sense: “I support a national consensus” sounds a whole lot better
ly want it legislated at all: A 2024 poll found that 81 percent of vot- than “I support a national ban,” especially given how unpopular Republicans’
ers don’t want abortion issues to be regulated by the government. In- bans are.
stead, they want the decision to be between a patient and their doctor. More recently, conservative lawmakers and activists are using the phrase
That overwhelming support for legal abortion leaves Republicans with a major “the will of the people.” Donald Trump used it when announcing that he be-
problem: How do you defend and push a policy that no one wants? In the nearly lieved abortion should be left to the discretion of the states, and Marjorie Dan-
two years since Roe v. Wade was overturned, the GOP has faced an unprecedent- nenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, used the phrase
ed backlash. They’re losing election after election — from the 2022 midterms to six times in an interview with The New York Times. Like “consensus,” “will of
state Supreme Court races — and abortion rights win every time they are on the the people” gives voters the impression that the GOP actually cares what Amer-
ballot. Republicans are even considering doing away with the term “pro-life” be- icans want.
cause Americans view it as too extreme. The horror stories regularly coming out And in a moment when so many states are using citizen-led ballot initiatives
of states with abortion bans certainly don’t help. to restore and protect abortion rights, Republicans are also eager to claim that
In response, anti-abortion lawmakers and groups have recently launched a “the will of the people” is being represented by legislators — rather than voters
new two-pronged attack. They’re changing the way they publicly talk about abor- having a direct say on an issue. Before the Supreme Court heard arguments this
tion, using specific terms and phrases to make Americans believe that they’re spring over lifesaving abortions in emergency rooms, for example, conservative
softening on the issue; at the same time, they’re systematically chipping away at legal powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom accused the Biden administra-
democracy so that voters won’t have a say in the matter, just in case their talking tion of “overrid[ing] the will of Idaho voters enacted through their elected rep-
JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
points don’t work. resentatives.”

I’ve been tracking these tactics in my newsletter, “Abortion, Every Day,” since Anti-abortion lawmakers and the organizations directing them are desperate
Roe was overturned, finding that the GOP’s deception runs deeper than most to hide the truth: They know Americans don’t want abortion banned, and they
people realize. simply don’t care. In fact, they’re willing to pass bans at any cost to democracy,
It wasn’t long after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision, for example, that anti- and to women’s lives.
abortion organizations and politicians stopped using the word “ban.” ( James Consider the dirty tricks Republicans have pulled in every state where
Bopp, general counsel for the National Right to Life Committee, called the term abortion has been on the ballot. In Ohio, not only did lawmakers try to raise
“the big ban word.”) Instead, they replaced it with words like “standard” and the standards on ballot measures to require 60 percent of the vote instead of
“consensus.” a simple majority, but Secretary of State Frank LaRose admit- [Cont. on 78]

GUTTER PHOTO CREDIT
Contributing editor ROB SHEFFIELD wrote about

Charlie Watts in the October issue.

NONSTOP
HUSTLE OF
CARDI B
THE
NONSTOP
HUSTLE OF
CARDI B
Amid the pressures of
celebrity and motherhood,
she’s on a mission to
prove her greatness
By Mankaprr Conteh
Photography by
Adrienne Raquel
THE
NONSTOP
GUTTER PHOTO CREDIT

CARDI B IS
MAKEUP-
in a good mood and I’m with my friends, [I’m] like,
‘Damn, I want my shit to be played in this club.’ But
then I might be mad with my man, so it’s like now I
want to do this song. But then I want to do a pop rec-
ord. I want to do my sing-y shit.”
More than anything, Cardi wants to prove once
FREE
and for all that the past six years haven’t happened
by luck or hype, and she’s working painstakingly,
anxiety-inducingly hard to do so. After I leave the stu-
ture-shifting album, but one nonetheless. In 2018, In- dio, Cardi needs to pore over her unmixed and un-
vasion of Privacy shot Cardi from Instagram theatrics mastered songs. When I see her next, in New York, I
and reality-show shenanigans into the stratosphere. watch her punch in lines dozens of times, fixating on
Just three years prior, she was stripping. Coming on her every tic, pitch, inflection, accent. She surveys
the heels of “Bodak Yellow,” one of the most import- confidants from all walks of life — “I have friends that
ant songs in the history of New York rap, the album’s are scammers, and I got bitches that work a 9-to-5”
emotional range and tight execution helped usher in — on her works in progress. She endures the punish-
an era in which all kinds of women in hip-hop have ment of being away from home.
and draped in an orange, impossibly plush, queen- broken through and thrived. “These labels was not So, when people doubt her dedication to her craft,
size blanket as she shuffles into Glenwood Place Stu- believing in repping new rap artists,” Cardi says. it gets under her skin. “Like yesterday, I was scrolling
dios in Burbank, California, around nine o’clock one “People from every single label have fucking told me through TikTok and a bitch made me cry,” she admits
evening in mid-March. Whatever hairstyle she cur- this shit in my face. They started signing new female solemnly from the studio couch. “She was just like,
rently has (knowing Cardi, it could be anything from rappers after I got signed. Whether some bitches ‘She has got to give it up. She’s better off being an in-
a wig worth thousands to her fluffy, waist-length could be the greatest rappers [or] they just make fluencer. You was cosplaying being a rapper. Because
natural hair) is tucked under a giant bonnet, its good music — at the end of the fucking day, guess you don’t take it seriously. That’s why you don’t put
magenta-and-teal geometric print immediately fa- what? They’re in your playlist right now.” out your music.’ And it’s like, I take my music so fuck-
miliar from videos she’s posted on TikTok. Along the way, Cardi became a mother two times ing seriously that that’s why I don’t put it out. Be-
Cardi, who’s been handling phone calls and other over without losing herself in the role. Instead, she cause if it’s not perfect to my ear, if every fucking
tasks since 9 a.m., is feeling drained. She’s here to amped up every part of her being, including her word doesn’t sound like it’s pronounced right, if the
work on her upcoming album, due later this year. To- sexuality, making her film debut in Jennifer Lopez’s beat is overpowering the words or the words is over-
night, she’s also tasked with what she calls “aggres- stripper-heist Hustlers and recording history’s great- powering the beat, I don’t want to put it out.”
sive promotion” for a new single, “Enough (Miami).” est ode to the vagina, 2020’s “WAP,” with Megan Thee She continues: “When you give so much and some-
“Right now, I’m getting cursed out because I was Stallion. She became the only woman in hip-hop with body just drags it down, like you’re just playing with
supposed to be on Stationhead,” she says, referring multiple billion-stream songs on Spotify. And she your pussy all day, just watching Netflix all fucking
to the livestreaming app on which she is expected went on a historic feature run, lending her bold per- day long, it’s very hurtful.”
to be interacting with her fans (stan army name: sonality to rap newcomers like GloRilla, R&B sing- Of course, the album is just one hurdle. Now that
BardiGang). “I got 3,000 fans like, ‘The bitch …’ ” she ers like Summer Walker, and Latin stars like Shakira. Cardi B, the daughter of a Dominican-born cabbie fa-
growls, mimicking the fury she suspects is brewing. Despite those accomplishments, the prospect of a ther and a careful Trinidadian mother, raised poor
Cardi isn’t the only star at work in the building follow-up to Invasion of Privacy always loomed over in the Bronx, has earned most of what she’s wanted,
tonight. Lizzo pops into Cardi’s room to say hello. Cardi; she’s proclaimed that her sophomore album she’s been tasked with a new kind of survival: propel-
“Look at you!” she coos, hugging Cardi. “You look was coming nearly every year since her first. She ling her life, family, and legacy forward without get-
like a little angel. I love you.” She jokingly encourages worried: Could she match her previous success? Did she ting stuck in the traps of perfectionism or criticism.
Cardi to promote the clothes her shapewear brand have the right songs? In February, her husband and And as she works to solidify her status as a rap icon,
Yitty sent Cardi’s way (“Post and tag!”) before an- fellow rapper Offset put it to her plainly: “Stop being she struggles to manage the more mortal but no less
nouncing that she’s off to “get some dick.” scary and drop the album, shit goes crazy.” important challenges of motherhood and marriage.
C
“Lucky you,” says Cardi. “Lucky, lucky you.” On this March night in Los Angeles, there’s a lot left
Cardi needs coffee. When it arrives, she tears open to do: It needs an intro and at least three more songs. ARDI B’S HOME is at its homiest on
several — like, several — packets of sugar and dumps It needs a title, it needs features, and it needs a rollout the weekends. That’s when, she
them into her mug, along with some cream. Despite plan. “Being out here is my punishment,” she says. tells me in L.A., she and the eight
her visceral fatigue, it doesn’t take long for her to an- “Until I have the album ready, I’m not going home.” people who live with her in New
imate. When she cracks jokes or speaks hyperbolical- Having spent the past three months recording in Jersey — her kids Kulture (age five)
ly, there is an undercurrent of laughter that gurgles L.A. and Miami, cities that are functionally office and Wave (age two), plus an aunt,
in her throat but doesn’t always break, like a stand- buildings for her, Cardi is homesick for her bustling a niece, and four cousins — are
up who knows not to spend too much time giggling mansion just outside of her hometown of New York. joined by even more family. Cardi feels the most like
at herself. “When I come to L.A., I be like, ‘I’m ready to get shit herself then, with everyone sharing food and music.
“I could drink a dark coffee,” she says. “But only done,’ ” she says. “Then, eight days in, my mind starts “We do a lot of oxtail. We do a lot of fried fish,” she
my family could make a dark coffee I could drink.” missing home, feeling lonely, and then I be like, ‘Girl says. “We do a lot of crab legs. We do a lot of goat.”
“Is it a different type of coffee?” I ask. … ’ ” — as if confronting herself — “I miss my kids.” She has a Filipino aunt by marriage who makes des-
“No, but they make it with love,” she says, shrink- Brunson, who has been by her side since 2016, serts with mango, condensed milk, and lychee jelly, as
ing into a petite, Disney-princess swoon. (Her long- says making music involves a “roller coaster of emo- well as a savory meat dish Cardi loves but the name of
time recording engineer Evan LaRay Brunson tells tions” for Cardi. “When we good, we knocking them which she can’t recall. “It looks like a little burrito, a
me her family makes their coffee with brown sugar.) out. Verse after verse, hook, ad-libs. I’m like, ‘You’re little piece of doo-doo,” she says, fondly. The kitchen,
It’s easy to forget that the 31-year-old superstar done quick. You sure?’ But when she’s going through however, isn’t Cardi’s domain. “One thing I hate doing
born Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar is only one album it, it’s going to be a long day.” is cooking,” she says. “It takes too much of my time.”
deep — one record-breaking, Grammy-winning, cul- Cardi holds herself to exorbitant standards. She Cardi’s family proudly plays her songs at the
wants the album to have a wide reach, but also re- house, though she’d rather they didn’t. “I’m like,
Staff writer MANKAPRR CONTEH wrote the 21 Savage flect that she’s a mosaic of a woman. “I’m a differ- ‘Oh, God, here y’all go,’ ” she says with a bashful
cover story in January. ent person every single day,” she says. “When I’m smile, elongating the “o” for dramatic effect. Most

I ask her if she means postpartum depression.
“Postpartum everything. It becomes depression be-
cause it’s a drastic change,” she says. When she had
Wave in 2021, she was better able to stay afloat. She
found reprieve in a trip to Paris soon after he was
born, but also at her local IHOP, where she’d often
roll solo for Bananas Foster pancakes.
When she’s with her children, Cardi indulges in
simple pleasures — cuddling in bed, taking them to
Target. She and Kulture enjoy dates at the gym and
restaurants, and time together at her dance rehears-
als and studio sessions. “My daughter [can] talk,
honey,” she says, admiring Kulture’s curiosity. “It’d
be like 10 questions in a minute.” Her daughter loves
her piano lessons, and two of Cardi’s dancers — the
Twins, she calls them — give Kulture and her cousin
private classes, having started by letting the girls pick
routines on TikTok, per Cardi’s instructions.
Wave already loves rap music, Cardi says, noting
“he’s a turnt lil boy.” Kulture’s favorite musicians are
her parents. She loves “Clout,” which features both
of them. But more than anything, Cardi says, they
like music made for kids, performed by children like
a Russian-American YouTube star named Nastya and
rap sensation That Girl Lay Lay, who had a show on
Nick. “They’re innocent, really innocent,” she coos.
Despite the trials of motherhood, Cardi wouldn’t
change a thing, “It’s like it’s meant to be. The stars
align. My kids are the best decisions I ever made.”
IN DECEMBER, Cardi filmed herself on Instagram Live

MANAGEMENT. MAKEUP BY ERIKA LA’ PEARL AT GKG MANAGEMENT LLC. MANICURE BY COCA MICHELLE. TAILORING BY ROR RODRIGUEZ. PRODUCTION ASSISTANCE BY MIA BELLA
CHAVEZ AND ELIJAH CHANDLER. LIGHTING DIRECTOR: SEBASTIAN JOHNSON. PHOTOGRAPHIC ASSISTANCE BY LANCE WILLIAMS. DIGITAL TECHNICIAN: RENEE DODGE. STYLING
while she was at her wit’s end, and it was gutting.

“This motherfucker really likes to play games with
PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTION BY EMMA REEVES. PRODUCED BY XAVIER HAMEL. STYLING BY KOLLIN CARTER AT THE WALL GROUP. HAIR BY TOKYO STYLEZ AT CHRIS AARON
me when I’m at my most vulnerable time,” she said.

Only her head above the neck and her slender, fran-
ASSISTANCE BY JUAN ORTIZ, POSH MCKOY, AND LOUIS BATTISTELLI. LOCATION: MILK STUDIOS. POSTPRODUCTION: PICTUREHOUSE + THE SMALLDARKROOM.
“I TAKE MY
MUSIC SO
FUCKING
SERIOUSLY.
BECAUSE
IF IT’S NOT
PERFECT TO MY EAR, I DON’T
often though, they listen to Spanish-language music.
“My country” — she means the Dominican Republic
WANT TO PUT IT OUT.”

— “they listen to merengue, they listen to típico, they
listen to bachata. I’m really into that.” She’d like to
make a Spanish-language album in the near future.
“As soon as I finish this album, I am going to fucking
Puerto Rico,” Cardi says, especially wanting to make months after Invasion of Privacy dropped, and right tic, stiletto-nailed fingers were in the frame as she
reggaeton there. as she was planning for a national tour. “I was really, hollered, her voice cracking and face slipping off
Cardi’s preferences are dictated by her moods. “If I really scared,” says Cardi. “I just [felt] like, damn, I’m camera as she went on. “You really been doing me
feel good, if I’m with my family, if I’m eating goat, I’m letting everybody down. I’m letting my family down. dirty after so many fucking years!” she yelled. “And
going to listen to merengue; Antony Santos or just I’m letting everybody that works for me down.” it’s so crazy that I got to go to the fucking internet be-
local Dominican artists,” she says. “If I’m moody, I’d She backed out of the tour to be home with Kul- cause whenever the fuck I tell you something, you
probably listen to a very old Shakira song or her new ture. “My baby was so little — germs and planes and don’t take shit seriously, and I’m so tired of it! I’m so
songs.” Rocío Dúrcal, the late, legendary artist known ear popping on a newborn?” asks Cardi. “Can you fucking tired of this bitch-ass nigga!”
to fans as la Reina de las Rancheras, is one of her fa- imagine a baby in a fucking tour bus?” She compared She was talking about Offset, her husband of near-
vorites: “When I’m going through shit with my mans, the first year of motherhood to competing on a game ly seven years. Not long before that clip, Cardi had
I like to listen to her.” show — think the obstacle course on vintage Nickel- made a surprising revelation on another Instagram
When Cardi was younger, she told herself she’d odeon’s Legend of the Hidden Temple, only on two Live — she’d actually been single “for a minute now.”
be a mother by 25, a prophecy she fulfilled at what hours of sleep. “It fucked me up,” she says. “Yo, post- But later, she’d reveal to the world (and to me) that
seemed like an inopportune time: She gave birth just partum is something you can’t even explain.” things are more complicated. In February, she went

CARDI B
“IT’S NOT EVEN ABOUT, ‘HOW

on a Valentine’s Day date with him and was caught
trying to hide makeup smudged from making out.
DO YOU LEAVE A PARTNER?’

The next month, she’d clarify that despite the break-
up, she was still married. She doesn’t include Off-
HOW DO YOU STOP

set when she lists the people who live with her, but
later tells me, “When Offset comes around, he comes
around, so he’s a helping hand, too.” In late April,
they were spotted happily together at a New York
Knicks game. TALKING TO YOUR
BEST FRIEND?”
Cardi B and Offset began dating in 2017, when
Offset’s rap trio Migos were hip-hop’s hottest and
most trend-setting unit. She’d had some rough dating
experience with boyfriends — including one who’d
overpower her in their physical fights, and anoth-
er who made her feel she was too broke, too skinny,
too loud — somehow too much yet never enough, she
says. “Once I cut him off and I stopped caring about
what he [thought] about me,” she says, “I started
doing videos on Instagram. That’s how I got famous,
because it was like, ‘Fuck him.’ ”
In Offset, she finally found a partner who built her
up instead of breaking her down. “When I met Off-
set, he was super rich and I just got my fucking first
$200,000 in the bank,” she recalls. “He never made
me feel like I was little to him. He actually always
used to tell me, ‘You a fucking superstar, watch.’ ”
Cardi and Offset got married at home in sweats in
September 2017 (Cardi’s white, with metallic trim,
Offset’s black, with white checkerboarding down the
sides), though Offset later proposed to Cardi flashi-
ly at one of her shows, complete with an eight-carat
ring. Cardi moved in with Offset in Atlanta, his home-
town, but hated it, feeling isolated.
There have been other challenges — not the least of
which was Offset’s infidelity. Cardi told Vogue in 2020
that her husband had cheated but they had worked
through it. Later that year, Cardi filed for a divorce,
explaining that it was not due to cheating, but mis-
alignment. “I just got tired of fucking arguing,” she
said then. “I got tired of not seeing things eye to eye.”
But less than two months later, Cardi withdrew her
claim, and the next year, they celebrated Wave’s ar-
rival together.
In 2022, Cardi was sentenced to 15 days of com-
munity service for separate attacks on a pair of bar-
tenders at a strip club in Queens four years prior, in
what authorities alleged stemmed from a romantic
rivalry over Offset. She pleaded guilty to the charges
against her before a trial was set to start, saying she
was modeling accountability for her children. (She’s
faced other legal issues over the years, including a
successful lawsuit against a defamatory blogger. She’s
currently a defendant in a suit related to an alleged
assault on a security guard that’s slated to go to trial
in late May.)
In L.A., I ask Cardi what she cherishes in her mar-
riage and what’s been difficult. The question seems to
suck the air out of the room, but she answers calmly.
“The part I love is that we really like each other, like a
support system. We’re really both each other’s cheer-
leader. I don’t really like talking to people. I’m not as
social. If I want something from somebody, he’ll be
the one that will talk. Because I don’t like asking.”
When she gets to the challenges in her marriage,
I’m surprised to hear her zero in on her own short-
GUTTER PHOTO CREDIT
comings. “We have our own bad stuff,” she says.

“We’re from two different worlds. Sometimes I can-
not be … not that I cannot be a wife. It’s just like, my
career takes my life. You know what I’m saying? My
career comes first, then my kids come second. And

GUTTER PHOTO CREDIT

CARDI B
then sometimes I don’t realize that I’m putting so niggas,” she says of Biden and Trump. Before, she prove to myself. I also got to prove something to the
many things before my relationship.” had seen Trump as a dire threat, but under Biden, haters. I’ve got to prove it to my own kids.”
I tell her that sounds accountable, like she’s say- she’s felt “layers and layers of disappointment” from
ing, There’s room for me to grow in the relationship too. what she sees as domestic and foreign mismanage- THREE WEEKS LATER, it’s 2 a.m. in New York, and
“I don’t want to grow,” Cardi says. “I remember ment. The cost of living is too high, wages are too Cardi B is at Jungle City Studios, trying to perfect two
last year when we was going through our hard time. low, and too little is being done about it, she says. “I couplets on a new song. She gives it 13 takes before
And it’s like, ‘Put your album out. You’re overstress- feel like people got betrayed.” Brunson, the engineer, suggests some tea.
ing. When was the last time we went on a vacation?’ “It’s just like, damn, y’all not caring about no- Cardi sips the green tea he lovingly orders her —
And it’s like, ‘I don’t got time to go on a vacation, be- body,” she says. “Then, it really gets me upset that extra sweet, of course, along with her bodega favor-
cause this comes first.’ This comes first and then my there is solutions to it. There is a solution. I know ite, buttered rolls — in the hopes it may make her a lit-
kids come second. The little things I have to take care there’s a solution because you’re spending billions tle less nasal. Cardi turned up to the studio absolutely
of then comes. I sometimes feel like I do probably put of dollars on any fucking thing.” disheveled: The lining of her long black lace-front
my relationship last.” (Later, she’ll tweak that list of After President Biden insisted the U.S. could fund wig shows from her forehead, the layered curls stiff
priorities — more on that in a moment.) both Israel and Ukraine in their respective wars and frizzy. She’s wearing cute sweats — black joggers
I ask Cardi what she’s decided to do about her against Gaza and Russia in October, Cardi spoke out and an orange hoodie with a vibrant painting of what
marriage. “I think it through. We think it through, against it. She echoes the sentiment with me, but is looks like the Virgin Mary, designed by her 22-year-
because we do love each other. It’s not even about concerned artists of color can get “blackballed” for old cousin, Marcelito — but she’s visibly uncomfort-
love. We’re best friends. And it’s like, ‘OK. Well, there talking about the war in Gaza. “[America] don’t pay able. The day before, she’d been stricken with an ill-
was a time that I didn’t have a best friend, or I didn’t for endless wars for countries that have been going ness she theorizes could have come from someone
have a support system.’ It’s not even about ‘How do through shit for a very long time,” she says. “There’s in her house, a bout of migraines, or the Hamburg-
you leave a partner?’ How do you stop talking to your countries [where] kids are getting killed every single er Helper she made for the first time in a while dis-
best friend?” day, but because the [U.S.] won’t benefit from that agreeing with her. She keeps Excedrin and Pepto Bis-
O
country, they won’t help. I don’t like that America has mol by her side at the studio. “They need to endorse
NCE CARDI DROPS her second this superhero cape on. We never did things to be su- me, honey,” she says of Pepto. “Because that’s some-
album, she’ll finally tour, which perheroes. We did things for our own convenience.” thing I fucking use.”
will mean missing Kulture and As we talk politics, Cardi is mindful of her words. Right now, Cardi is prioritizing songs from the
Wave for long stretches. Would With her life under a microscope, she’s struggled album that have features, or need them placed. She
she consider a residency, of the lately with how much to open up — on anything. The wants them to sound irresistible to the artists, who
sort Adele and Usher have taken impulses that have made her both a public darling she says span a gamut of rappers and singers. (She
up? “No, you’ve got to [go] for and tabloid target are similar: She’s had an uncan- also mentions she had fun working on a song with DJ
everybody from different states,” she says. “That’s ny willingness to be staunchly opinionated and be- Khaled, but won’t confirm what for.)
how I promoted my mixtape.” wilderingly honest, to be imperfect on camera, to I can only hear the new song seeping out of her
“You’re also not in the same position you were divulge the typically embarrassing. Now, even on headphones. I catch the Afro-Caribbean energy of
when you did that,” I offer. her album, she’s been hedging. “I really want to talk the beat, then hear Cardi singing speedily and in a
“Yeah, but somebody might not be able to afford a about the life changes that I’ve been dealing with the rather high register. With every few attempts at the
ticket to go see you in a residency in Vegas,” she rea- past six, seven years,” she says of her new music. lines she’s trying to get down, she and Brunson work
sons. “Somebody could just afford a $200 ticket, but “But then it’s just like, I feel like people don’t deserve on tweaks — bringing the pitch down, rapping them
they can’t afford a $200 ticket and then a flight. And to know because people use my pain against me.” more, even changing the lyrics slightly.
you got to touch everybody. That’s why I feel like a Shortly after that video eviscerating Offset, Nicki “Sounds fucking terrible,” Cardi mutters.
lot of these people don’t have fan bases, because they Minaj — with whom Cardi has had a hostile relation- “Don’t be hard on yourself,” Brunson says brightly.
never touch the people. They just became famous, ship for years — posted a photograph of Michael “Shut the fuck up,” Cardi bites back cartoonishly,
and they never went to a chitlin’ cir-
cuit. They never been to Greenville,
North Carolina. They never fuckin’ “I WANT TO TALK ABOUT LIFE
CHANGES I’VE BEEN DEALING
went to a Baton Rouge type of shit.”
When she first got popular as
WITH, BUT PEOPLE

a dancer, she recalls, she hit little
clubs for just $2,000, running around the country Jackson gleefully peering out of a
in her old manager’s PT Cruiser. As a rapper, she re- car window, which many thought
members, “I went to Mississippi, a small town, and
they was having a slap-fighting contest. I had the bestUSE MY PAIN
mocked Cardi’s furor. A flurry of
blogs and commentators ran sto-
AGAINST ME.”
time of my life. I remember one time when I went ries about the perceived slight, Car-
to Memphis and, oh, my gosh, I couldn’t even see di’s assumed response (“Take your
because it was smoked out. They was having a ba- man to a park and leave me alone,”
nana-sucking contest. I loved it. Or one time in North she had written on X), and the women’s warring fan like an exaggerated mob boss. “I fucking hate it.” She
BOOTS BY BALENCIAGA. PREVIOUS SPREADS: DRESS BY Y-PROJECT.

Carolina, they literally had me performing in a barn. bases. So, as Cardi opened up about a breakdown in tries again about 33 more times.
There was a lot of people in there.” her marriage, an online ecosystem turned it to gos- In the process, she stops to talk about some ran-
Cardi emerged on the scene as a people’s princess sip fodder and stan-war artillery. But for as much as dom topics: the cabbie broadcast-news network her
THIS SPREAD AND OPENING SPREAD: DRESS BY MUGLER.
from a working-class background, and she’s been she shares online, Cardi would say that she’s actual- dad used to listen to, loving New York, relaxing with
vocal on social issues, too, from New York’s city and ly prone to keep even more to herself. “I’m a lonely ASMR. At one point, she sniffs the air and senses that
state government to Social Security and immigration. sufferer,” she says. Offset had been in the studio the night before. “It
A political junkie with an encyclopedic recollection I ask Cardi what her self-care looks like. “Being at smells like weed and it smells like cologne,” she says.
of American presidents, she became a sought-after home,” she says. “When I was off social media and “But I don’t smell pussy. Better not come to my stu-
pundit, endorsing and interviewing Bernie Sanders nobody knew what I was doing, I was at peace a lot. dio with no hoes.”
and then Joe Biden as they pursued the presidency. But what am I going to do? Never post or never work I’m surprised that Cardi is back on the East Coast
Then, last November, she declared she’d never do again because that’s peace? No. I don’t ever want my after having banished herself to Los Angeles to finish
it again — for any president or hopeful. By March, daughter or my son to ever give up on something be- the album. She tells me a lot of her family has moved
she had told L.A. radio host Big Boy she wouldn’t cause they can’t take the pressure of what people say out of her house, leaving just Marcelito to help with
even vote in the upcoming presidential election. She about them. I got to set that example. It’s like, ‘Y’all the kids — she has to look for a nanny, something
tells me she means it. “I don’t fuck with both of y’all never going to break me.’ Because I got something to she’s deeply uneasy about. For now, [Cont. on 79]

GUTTER PHOTO CREDIT

HE AVERAGE HIGH temperature in Quebec City in
March is 33 degrees Fahrenheit, with a low of around
18. That’s apparently of no consequence to the locals,
who have chosen the month for an outdoor music fes-
tival appropriately dubbed Igloofest. The annual event,
billed as “the coldest music festival in the world,” is an
opportunity for Québécois music lovers to flex their
winter gear, with revelers in full-body ski suits, snow
goggles, and what appears to be the most advanced
outdoor apparel on the market.
Kaytranada, this year’s headliner, arrives backstage
around 8 p.m. wearing black Celine sweatpants and
Balenciaga wraparound sunglasses. He’s flanked on ei-
ther side by his mom and sister, as well as a bevy of crew mem-
bers trailing as he heads toward the main stage for his set. While
he’s well-known as a maestro of dance floors across the world, he
tells me later on that he’s only recently started working regularly
with CDJs, a standard tool used by live DJs to play digital music in
their sets. “I just got tired of carrying my laptop around,” he says. “I
wanted to look more like a DJ.”
Onstage, you’d never guess he had any doubts about his posi-
tion as a selector. Somewhere between a traditional DJ set and a
live performance, his set at Igloofest races through his catalog as
both a producer and solo artist, all to a raucous response from the
crowd, which explodes in cheers at every beat drop. Despite the
high-profile occasion, Kaytranada — one of Canada’s most famous
musicians not named Celine, Abel, or Aubrey — is as laid-back as
ever. He moves with a sense of familiarity, the local legend show-
ing love to the folks who got him here. “This is the most Canadian
thing,” he says backstage. “Like, to see all this snow, and people also
just not giving a fuck.”
After celebratory drinks backstage with the other Igloofest per-
formers — DJs Sango and Kitty Ca$h, as well as Kay’s younger
brother, who raps under the name Lou Phelps — Kaytranada tells
me how, lately, he’s found himself balancing a range of expectations,
all while trying to make music that still feels true
to him. He says that his third full-length album,
Timeless, which he’ll go on to drop in early June,
takes its inspiration from Eighties New Wave, a
decidedly left-field turn for a musician known
for forward-thinking club bangers. of artists and the traditions that came before. sented a shift in collaborations for the producer,
He says he decided to delete his Twitter, now Kaytranada’s stuttering, near-syncopated drum who up to that point was content sending beats
known as X, because the comments from fans rhythms take their inspiration from the Haitian to artists and working with whatever they sent
telling him who to collaborate with next, while dance genre compas, while infusing the sound back. This time, Kaytranada took over the driv-
well-meaning, became frustrating. “People are with traditional hip-hop and R&B rhythms. er’s seat, working in-studio with left-of-center
like ‘Oh, my gosh, you need After a string of popular pop voices like Charlotte Day Wilson, Tinashe,
to work with this artist. Is remixes and SoundCloud and Kali Uchis. When it comes to collaborators,
Beyoncé on your album? Is edits, his 2016 debut, 99.9%, it’s never about picking the biggest name, but
Tyler on your album?’ ” he
“I always used to be very established him as an simply finding an artist whose sound meshes
says, now in his dressing shy in the studio. It took auteur-level producer, not with Kay’s creations. Even so, he says, taking
room, clutching a glass of me a while to understand, unlike Madlib and J Dilla, control hasn’t always felt natural.
wine close to 1 a.m. “It’s like who Kay tells me were his “I think I’m kind of shy,” he tells me. “I always
OK, I got to be the one that
THROUGHOUT, BY BERNARD JAMES, MARTINE ALI, AND MM6 MAISON.
people are trying to choose inspirations growing up. used to be very shy in the studio and sometimes
says ‘Do it like this.’ I’m
PREVIOUS SPREAD: OUTFIT BY HELMUT LANG. JEWELRY, WORN
for me what my album Released as a one-off on let the artists just do their thing because I didn’t
should sound like, and that learning to do that now.” the indie powerhouse XL, want to correct them or anything. It took me a
would drive me crazy.” the album introduced Kay- while to understand, OK, I got to be the one that
Still, you can’t blame tranada’s sound — replete says ‘Do it like this.’ I don’t have a leader mental-
people for asking. Over the course of his career, with two-step rhythms and swinging, undulat- ity. I’m learning to do that now.”
Kaytranada has enlivened the rap and R&B at- ing drums — to the masses. The single “You’re Bubba would go on to earn Kay the award
mosphere with pointed reminders of the fact the One,” featuring the Internet’s Syd, remains for Best Dance/Electronic Album at the 2021
that music is supposed to make you dance. He a classic: a hit so textured and innovative that it Grammys, an accolade that apparently flipped a
arrived in the 2010s like a missing link between feels like it will never age. Kay’s debut album also switch for the musician, who shortly after made
Black music’s past and present, capable of foster- set off a spree of more mainstream collabora- the decision to relocate to Los Angeles. “Mon-
ing a seamless blend between a new generation tions and, ultimately, a major-label deal at RCA. treal is not a celebrity town, but I get a celebri-
With the Grammy-winning Bubba, re- ty treatment,” he says. “It doesn’t make me feel
Senior music editor JEFF IHAZA wrote the DJ leased three years later, Kaytranada’s brand of like myself.” He contrasts this with L.A., where
Khaled cover story in December. dance-infused R&B took off. The album repre- “I could be in a room and there’ll be six other
52 ROLLING STONE JUNE 2024

celebrities. That makes me more comfortable, the main event, playing local clubs and parties ple. Dilla would do those micro-chops that don’t
like all eyes are not on me.” around Canada. make any sense, but sound like a big beautiful
Kaytranada’s parents, who had emigrated collage. I got so inspired by that. I had a phase
AYTRANADA GREW UP in Saint- from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, when he was a tod- where I was just remaking his beats when I was,
Hubert, just outside of Montreal. dler, shared a musical sensibility. His mother like, 15, remaking Donuts.”
A middle child in the family, he sang in a choir, and his father was an avid musi- Kaytranada started making music with his
showed musical talent early on. cian and audiophile. Kay says his dad had a big younger brother around the same time. “We
After he graduated high school, sound system in their house growing up, com- had the microphone that came with a PC, and
he was invited to a beat complete with a record player and DJ mixer. He’d an audio recorder that could record 30 seconds
petition called Artbeat Montre- hear tunes from legends like Bob Marley, Mi- of voice,” he says. “We would play an instrumen-
al, which he ended up winning. chael Jackson, and Lionel Richie alongside the tal from a 50 Cent website, and just rap over it
Soon after, he’d make a name for traditional Haitian music his father grew up and make full songs. I always wanted that for us,
himself playing shows around his with. Kay’s two older sisters were another im- to have a career as a Gang Starr type of thing.
hometown alongside his broth- portant influence. “My big sisters were always The producer and the MC.”
playing music around, and that’s how I really The pair released their debut project as the
THIS AND THE FOLLOWING SPREAD: OUTFIT BY VERSACE.
er. They started out as a classic

rapper-producer duo and went fell in love with hip-hop,” he says. “They had the Celestics, titled Massively Massive, in 2011. But it
by the name the Celestics, a play on their last keys to all the good music. I was exposed to a soon became clear that Kaytranada’s production
name, Celestin. (Kaytranada’s first name is lot of great hip-hop music from the ’97-’98 era.” was taking off on a different level. “I think we
Louis, but he goes by his middle name, Kevin; As he started to experiment with the nascent went separate ways because I got too successful
his brother, Louis-Phillipe, goes by Lou.) digital-production tools that emerged in the with the electronic things I was doing, and that
It didn’t take long for Kay’s beats to be rec- early 2000s, Kaytranada got much of his inspi- was not easy for both of us,” he says. “People
ognized as coming from somewhere out of ration from J Dilla, whose intricately chopped were bringing up ‘Kaytranada and his brother.’
this planet. Even among the EDM-centric pop samples might be his clearest point of compari- My brother really didn’t like that. I didn’t really
production of the 2010s, something about his son. “I really studied Dilla,” he says. “Instead of appreciate it either. I just wanted us to be called
sound stood apart. There was a more energetic studying for school, I studied his music — him a duo.”
swing, a syncopation rooted in history, an ir- and Madlib were producers where I was just try- Looking back, Kay adds, his brother “was the
resistible danceability. Before long, he was ing to understand how they would chop a sam- leader of things. He was calling the shots. And
JUNE 2024 ROLLING STONE 53

for me to become the person that everybody’s floor of an industrial-style building, and by the da production on my own vocals,” he says. What
looking at, it was not that easy.” Eventually they time we arrive, Sango is already busy rearrang- appeals to him about this direction is the sense
came to the decision to split up the group. Kay ing bodies on the dance floor with an eclectic of artistic freedom it offers. “The New Wave and
would still produce for his brother, but the mix of amapiano, R&B, and house that make his the grunge era, people did not have the best
dream of a Gang Starr-like duo would have to friendship with Kaytranada seem instinctive. voices, but they made amazing music,” he says.
wait. While Kay’s career was taking off, the ten- Sango finds connections that only seem to make “This is just simply art, and it’s how I feel.”
sion lingered in the background until around sense on a dance floor. At one point in the night, Timeless has been years in the making. Kay
2020, when both came to a better understand- Justin Timberlake’s hit “Rock Your Body” booms tells me he recorded most of the songs around
ing of what had happened. through the speakers before somehow blending the time he received the Grammy in 2021.
“Honestly, it was kind of like a dagger to the perfectly into an Afrobeats track. He’s got a song with Childish Gambino that he
heart,” his brother Lou tells me later. “Me being After the show ends on the earlier side, recorded in this same period, as well as fea-
young, I was like ‘Why aren’t you bringing me?’ around 11, we head to the apartment of one of tures from Teyana Taylor, Anderson .Paak, SiR,
And he was like, ‘Man, I got to do my own thing. Kay’s friends, a local club owner and promoter, and Channel Tres. “It’s not big, big names,” he
You got to blow up by yourself too.’ ” to hang out before Kitty Ca$h’s set later in the says, “but it’s definitely artists that I love to work
night. In the car on the way, Kay and Lou sit in with.”
HE NIGHT BEFORE Igloofest, I join the back seat riffing about hip-hop. At one point Kay tells me that there are “so many things
Kaytranada and the rest of the fes- the subject of Kanye West comes up, and both that changed since the last album,” most no-
tival lineup at Elena, an Italian Kay and Lou agree that he remains one of the tably the technology he’s been able to use. He
restaurant in Montreal’s Saint-Henri most influential musicians of all time and that his briefly geeks out over new sampling techniques
neighborhood, for a pre-show link- most recent antics are a disappointing continu- made possible by AI. “There’s this song called
up. Sango, another local talent, who ation of traits he’s shown throughout his career. ‘Seemingly’ where I sampled this Don Blackman
notably collaborated with Frank Later on, at the apartment, the conversa- record, and I’m just playing around the keys,”
Ocean on a set of remixes in 2019, tion turns to 4Batz, the fast-rising R&B crooner he says. “Now that I have the AI stems of it, I’m
is scheduled to play a show later who got a cosign from Drake, as well as lots of just breaking down the bass, and the keys, and
that night in the city. Kitty Ca$h, a industry-plant accusations. My skepticism about the vocals to it. And the drums are crazy. If the
Brooklyn-based producer and DJ, his music is quickly shot down by the party’s AI couldn’t exist, I would not even think about
also has a show this evening, set- guests, though I’m pretty sure I get a tacit nod sampling this record. [But] now I can mute the
ting the stage for a busy night out. of agreement from Kay, who later tells me that drums, and I can have space to add my own
At dinner, over cacio e pepe and Caesar salad, he wonders where he fits in today’s landscape. drums and make my own beat with that.”
Kay and his brother have an undeniable famil- “I’m not in the standards of pop music. So that He says he’s still inspired by the sounds he
ial chemistry, and it’s easy to pick up on Kay’s would mess with my head a lot,” he says. “In my grew up hearing as a kid, the so-called shiny-
sense that Lou was the leader. Where Kaytra- less-confident days, I’d be like, damn, it’s kind of suit era of hip-hop. “A lot of hip-hop heads are
nada is shy and reserved, his brother — who hard to just be yourself in this game because you discrediting it, but for me, it’s still an era where
looks just like him — is jovial and outgoing. Out- want to bring something new.” they would sample a lot of Studio 54-type disco
side the restaurant, as we sort out which cars He plays me an unreleased track he made songs, and then slow them down, and then just
STYLING BY VON FORD AT THE WALL GROUP. GROOMING BY ALEXA HERNANDEZ AT THE WALL GROUP USING TOM FORD BEAUTY. SET DESIGN BY
ANNIKA FISCHER. PRODUCTION MANAGER: MIABELLA CHAVEZ. LIGHTING TECHNICIAN: DOMINIQUE ELLIS. DIGITAL TECHNICIAN: RAMON FELIX.
everyone is traveling in, a fan comes up to Lou with the rapper Mach-Hommy, rumors of which freak them a little bit,” he says. “I have this song
to shake his hand and offer his appreciation for have floated around the rap internet for some with my brother where it’s this disco sample.
his music. In another life, the tables might have time now. (A few weeks later, it will pop up as It reminds me of that era, like the ‘Mo Money
been turned, and Kaytranada would’ve been the the first single and title track from Mach’s new Mo Problems’ music video, it kind of gives that
PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANCE: ANGEL CASTRO. STYLING ASSISTANCE: BRANDON YAMADA. PHOTOGRAPHED AT DUST STUDIOS.
one behind the scenes. album, #RICHAXXHAITIAN.) It slaps. Mach, vibe.”
“In my heart, I always wanted to be the known for his gritty raps and his anti-fame at- The collaboration with his brother will mark
producer, but the Kaytranada thing just … I titude, is both an unlikely and obvious collab- the first time they’ve been on a track together
wouldn’t say got out of control,” he says. “More orator for Kaytranada. Each musician is rooted since the days of the Celestics. “It’s been a long
like, ‘Oh, that really works. Continue with that.’ ” in a DIY ethos, and both infuse their music with time waiting,” Kay says. “My mom’s been mad
In 2016, Kaytranada came out of the closet, their shared Haitian heritage. “A lot of people for a while.”
giving an in-depth inter- don’t know the shit that Lou says he’s thrilled the collab is finally hap-
view to The Fader ahead of he did on the house-music pening, but more important, that his brother is
the release of his debut. “I “I still don’t think many shit,” Kay says. “He raps on entering this new phase in his life and career. “I
still don’t think many peo- people know that I’m gay,” a lot of house joints, and it can’t say he wasn’t confident, but he was so shy
ple know that I’m gay. Even sounds so effortless and and so reserved that he would never allow him-
with that story,” he joking-
he jokes. “Freddie Gibbs nice. He was showing me self to make decisions,” Lou says. “He would al-
ly tells me. “Freddie Gibbs was one of the first artists the house joints, and I was ways consider other people in his decisions. But
was one of the first artists that was like, ‘I’m proud of in shock, like, ‘What the now he’s just a boss. You can tell he knows who
that was like ‘I’m proud of fuck?’ ” he is. He knows his power. He knows the impor-
you, man, keep doing your you.’ That gave me hope.” Kay got inspired to ex- tance that he has on the community, and on the
thing.’ I thought that was plore a new sound of his people around him.”
crazy. That gave me hope.” own in 2022, while he was on tour with the After Igloofest, it is somehow snowing even
He says that while he knows hip-hop at large Weeknd. “I don’t know what got into me, but I more. The streets are caked in powder as we
still has issues with homophobia, a lot has ended up doing six demos with my own vocals, head to the afterparty in a cab. Anywhere else,
changed in the years since he first came out. me singing,” he says. One of those demos, called I’m sure this amount of snow would make for a
“Now, we got Lil Nas X and rappers from the “Stepped On,” made his new album. “I was re- slow night at a club, but not in Quebec. At the
LGBT community just coming out. R&B artists, ally writing this song for the Weeknd, technical- packed-out venue, Kay and his brother jump
too,” he says. “It’s more acceptable and more ly,” he adds. “But then it sounded nice to hear on the decks, teaming up like when they were
welcome. I heard Snoop and Dr. Dre were per- me singing on the song.” kids. This, too, feels natural. “We both got into
forming at Pride in L.A. That’s crazy.” He says he’s thinking about doing a full proj- our passions at the same time,” Kay says. “So
After dinner, we head to Sango’s show at a ect as a vocalist next. “It’s probably going to be a us DJ’ing together is … I don’t know how to ex-
club called Newspeak. The venue is on the top different moniker, but it’s going to be Kaytrana- plain. It’s just easy.”

they’re helping to redefine it
Jane Schoenbrun grew up obsessed with pop culture, and now
BY BRENNA EHRLICH
HEN JANE SCHOENBRUN was in rocelli, author of Queer for Fear: Horror Film and “My love of Buffy was a coping mechanism
high school, they spent hours de- the Queer Spectator. “Queerness and the horror for not being able to find and express love in the
vouring Buffy the Vampire Slayer. genre are inexorably linked, starting with the real world,” they say.
Schoenbrun watched Sarah Mi- Gothic literature of queer writers, such as Mary When they started their filmmaking career,
chelle Gellar play Buffy, who over Shelley, Oscar Wilde, and Bram Stoker, and then Schoenbrun made their mark with films that
the course of seven seasons, fig- furthered by gay horror directors like James delved into identity and internet culture — nota-
ures out who she really is — a pow- Whale and F.W. Murnau,” Petrocelli says. Rather bly the 2018 documentary A Self-Induced Hallu-
erful woman chosen to fight evil than the heteronormative leads, folks could cination, about Slender Man, a creepy pretend
forces. And Schoenbrun imagined sympathize with Frankenstein’s monster and his creature that kidnaps and terrorizes children.
how they might fit into the show. quest for identity — or the queer-coded Dracula. First appearing more than a decade ago, the
They saw themselves in everyone, from the This kind of closeted representation was less skinny, faceless figure in a suit became an in-
wacky pal Xander to the broody vampire Angel than ideal — as were later visions of non-cisgender ternet meme as people online wrote their own
to Willow and Tara, a pair of witches in love — identity in horror (see cross-dressing serial kill- stories about him and his devious deeds. But in
gender be damned. ers, like Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs). 2014, two preteen girls stabbed their friend and
“If you’d told me I could press a button and The Nineties and early aughts ushered in more left her for dead as a real offering to the fictional
become a cool, goth, queer girl, I would have equal-opportunity bloodfests, with both sexy being. (One of the girls was released in 2021,
been like, ‘Give me the button. I want to press male and female victims, and recent years have while the other remains in a mental institution.)
the button,’ ” Schoenbrun tells me. “But it would seen increasingly better representation when it Schoenbrun became fascinated with Slender
take me 20 years to understand that that was lit- comes to all sexualities and identities. Now, Pet- Man and his powerful lore. “Contributors would
erally all that it took to be trans: that desire. I rocelli says, we’re at a kind of final frontier: the never break character, they would never admit
was always trans, but there was no one and no trans experience. that the experiences they were recounting were
media at the time that told me that that was in Schoenbrun grew up in Westchester, New fictional,” they wrote in Filmmaker Magazine in
any way possible.” York, where parents raised their kids in the right 2018. “This allowed contributors and partici-
Now, at age 37, the trans and nonbinary writer- neighborhood to become anything they wanted pants to immerse themselves, to live for a while
director is making movies that speak to who to be — as long as it was a doctor or lawyer or in the fictional worlds they had invented togeth-
they were in high school — movies that explore U.S. president. “I’m pretty sure they weren’t er.” Schoenbrun later erased the documentary
the intricacies of identity through the lens of talking about becoming a girl who makes goth from Vimeo, not wanting to profit off of trage-
horror without pandering movies about how terri- dy, but they were fascinated by how the inter-
or oversimplifying. Schoen- ble late-stage-capitalist sub- net blurred reality and fiction.
brun’s latest film, I Saw the urban adolescence was,” “I remember wishing that magic was real as a
TV Glow, out this spring, is
“When you are 12 and Schoenbrun quips. And al- kid,” they tell me. “When you’re 12 and lonely,
a kind of allegory for the lonely, it becomes a though they had friends as it becomes a coping mechanism to go looking
trans experience that asks coping mechanism to a kid, Schoenbrun was ter- for that in media and in fiction.” As a kid, they
viewers “What’s more dan- rified of dating; they knew spent ample time on message boards them-
gerous: Folding yourself
go looking for [magic] they liked girls, but they selves, trading theories and even manufactur-
into an identity that doesn’t in media and in fiction,” didn’t want to flirt in the ing their own spoilers for their favorite shows —
fit — or burning it all down Schoenbrun says. way that boys did. They some of which spread through communities as
and reforming yourself wanted to become best truth. “It was never like, ‘I’m just a fan,’ ” they
from the ashes?” friends with their crushes, say. “It was like, ‘I am a fan and I am obsessed
Schoenbrun is helping to usher in a whole listening to sad music and watching their favor- with this, but I also want to get under the hood
new wave of the horror genre, one where a pre- ite films. and tinker around.’ ”
viously underrepresented community can truly Looking for a refuge, Schoenbrun told stories Their experience with the Slender Man doc-
see themselves on the screen. Horror has long — whether it was making up episodes of favorite umentary led, in part, to Schoenbrun’s break-
GUTTER PHOTO CREDIT
been seen as a largely male, cisgendered art TV shows, playing Dungeons & Dragons, or film- out, 2021’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, an
form — at least on the surface. Think half-clad ing zombie movies with their friends on a cam- eerie look at suburban malaise through the eyes
co-eds getting the ax while the virginal Final Girl corder they got for Hanukkah. And through it of an internet-obsessed teen who decides to take
makes it to the sequel. all, they found solace in fiction: horror flicks like a nightmarish viral challenge. It premiered two
But there have always been queer under- Evil Dead II, campy sci-fi like The X-Files, and, years after Schoenbrun came out to themselves
tones in scary stories, explains Heather O. Pet- most of all, Buffy. in 2019. The main character, Casey, is a lot like

the glow in you and all of the ways that we cope
with that pre-transition — and that all of the
ways that that coping is ultimately insufficient.”
Maddy’s journey, then, was “absolutely me re-
flecting on the defiance necessary to begin my
transition. I think of it as a prison-break movie,”
they add. The film also features Limp Bizkit’s
Fred Durst as Owen’s father, as well as cameos
from Buffy’s Amber Benson, Pete & Pete stars
Danny Tamberelli and Michael Marona, and
Phoebe Bridgers.
Lundy-Paine also found kindred spirits in
Owen and Maddy — especially the former char-
acter. Now 29, Lundy-Paine came out as non-
binary 10 years ago. While they came from a
“very queer family” and didn’t face the same
kind of prejudices that Schoenbrun saw in the
post-Ellen Nineties, they’re very aware of what a
rough process coming out can be. “I think about
Owen all the time, especially when it comes
to transition,” they tell me over Zoom; unlike
Maddy, who lives in almost a constant state of
rage, Lundy-Paine is Zen-calm. “It feels like it’s
too late for him. I feel like that sometimes. Be-
cause transition is a process that has so many
steps, and so much regression, and so much
fear. The fear doesn’t go away. But I do believe
that there’s always still time, and that it’s always
a process.”
To prepare for the film, Schoenbrun lent
Lundy-Paine their Buffy DVDs — a passing of the
torch from millennial to Gen Z. At first, Lun-
dy-Paine thought the show was “cringe,” much
like how Owen sees The Pink Opaque when he
rewatches it as an adult. When Lundy-Paine got
to Season Six, however, which heavily inspired I
Saw the TV Glow, they began to understand why
Schoenbrun has every episode title memorized.
That season features Buffy returning from the
dead after her friends set out to rescue her from
hell — only to discover she was in heaven all
along. An episode from that season sticks with
Schoenbrun today: “Normal Again,” which sees
Buffy in a mental hospital, convinced her life
thus far has been a delusion (thanks to some po-
tent demon venom). “There are shades of that,
for sure, in TV Glow,” Schoenbrun says. “The
teenage Schoenbrun: Disenchanted by her mun- with a show called The Pink Opaque, which cen- idea of entering fiction to cope with reality.”
dane life, the girl aims to blur the lines between ters around a pair of magically bonded teens, Schoenbrun actually enters the fiction of her
fiction and reality, creating her own creepy nar- Isabel (Helena Howard) and Tara (Lindsey Jor- own film — at least symbolically — in the form of
rative. The tension arises, though, when an dan, a.k.a. the musician Snail Mail). Stylistical- Tara and Isabel’s matching tattoos: a ghost with
older man grows concerned about Casey, try- ly, it’s a mashup of quirky Nineties programs glasses that look a bit like Schoenbrun’s own dis-
ing to “save” her from herself — against Casey’s like Are You Afraid of the Dark?, The Adventures tinctive frames. That image came to Schoenbrun
wishes. The horror is in that grab at control, not of Pete & Pete, and, of course, Buffy. Skating a in the shower one day. “I remember at the time
the game. fine line between fantasy and delusion, the film I was thinking a lot about the person I had been
“As Casey says in that film, ‘I love horror sees Maddy going missing after becoming in- — and the movie as this elegy for poor, repressed
movies, and I thought it might be cool to try ac- creasingly obsessed with the show — which is Jane,” Schoenbrun says. “The ghost with glasses
tually living in one,’ ” Schoenbrun says. “The preferable to her crappy home life. When she was a symbol of this fragile figure who was not
porousness of what is and what is not real as shows up years later claiming that she’s been yet ready to step into life.”
a kid is more fluid. It’s easier to get lost in that living inside The Pink Opaque as Tara, Owen is Now, though, with their second major film
MICHAEL BUCKNER FOR DEADLINE
magic.” torn about whether or not he thinks she’s tell- racking up rave reviews and audiences finding
I Saw the TV Glow — which Schoenbrun ing the truth — and if he wants to join her there. themselves in both Owen and Maddy, it seems
wrote just a few months after changing their Does he really believe in that kind of mixing and Schoenbrun has finally taken those first steps.
name and going on hormones — keeps to that melding of reality? Or will he live out the rest of And they’ve finally become the person that they
same tradition. It follows two outcasts, Maddy his life in the suburbs? once dreamed of: that cool, queer goth making
(Brigette Lundy-Paine) and Owen ( Justice For Schoenbrun, who sees themselves in horror films — movies where other lost teens
Smith), as they become increasingly obsessed both characters, Owen represents “not seeing might be able to find a home.

In 2020, when Billie and I started imagining a book about
prominent LGBTQ+ couples, we were shocked it didn’t exist
yet. So we started with a definition: Anyone in this book
would be out, partnered, and influential in mainstream
culture. And as we began this work — the day after our
wedding — we realized it didn’t yet exist because living at
the intersection of those three things was a relatively new
experience. After four years and dozens of interviews and
photo shoots, our book — Queer Power Couples: On Love
and Possibility — explores that reality through 14 couples
across generations. “There’s still not a lot of maps for queer
experiences,” Mike Hadreas of Perfume Genius told us. But
each couple played a role in making queer lives more visible
— making new maps for those coming after them.
Adapted from Queer Power Couples: On Love and

Possibility. Written by Hannah Murphy Winter and
photographed by Billie Winter.

Fawzia Mirza &
Andria Wilson Mirza
Growing up, the only
South Asian representation
Fawzia saw on TV was
Apu on The Simpsons. Now,
as filmmakers, she and
her wife, Andria, can give
audiences what they never
had. “I get messages from
people all the time that are
like, ‘I never saw a queer
Muslim person until you,’
and I was like, ‘I didn’t
either!’ ” Fawzia says.
“Celebrating our love outside
of the system that won’t
accept us — it took me my
whole life to get there.…
And yet we are thriving.”

Steven Norfleet &
Anthony Hemingway
Many of the couples who
spoke with us shared the
long journey between being
in the closet and being a
visible couple. Norfleet and Alan Wyffels & Michael Alden Debbie Millman
Hemingway, who met after
church in Los Angeles, were
Hadreas (Perfume Genius) & Roxane Gay
no different. Hemingway was As a teen in the Nineties, Hadreas One of the questions we asked each
“basically a preacher’s kid,” looked for evidence of queerness couple was how they relate to being
he says, so coming out to his everywhere he could. That’s why visible, queer role models. They all
mom when he was 25 was he and Wyffels are so aware of their felt the weight and the newness of
daunting. “I gave her a hug, own visibility. “I’ve always loved that that responsibility — but they weren’t
and I was like, ‘Mom, I’m gay. our relationship has been something uniformly enthusiastic. “I’d prefer
I hope you still love me.’ And that people could look up to,” Wyffels not to be visible,” Gay was quick
BILLIE WINTER, 4
she pulled me tighter and says. “We get a lot of feedback from to say, “but I think that everyone
uttered the words, verbatim: people being like, ‘You guys give me has responsibilities in a functional
‘Of course I love you. You’re so much hope that I’ll be able to find society, and if this is one of those
who God made you to be.’ ” something like you have someday.’ ” responsibilities, then so be it.”

Sasha Jane Lowerson is a world-class athlete, winning multiple longboarding titles. Since her 2020
transition, she’s helped make surfing more inclusive, even while some in the sport are resistant to change
BY MILES KLEE
ATCHING SASHA JANE ambassador, Lowerson is applying for a

Lowerson paddle out work visa, and she might eventually try
into the chilly Pacific, it for U.S. citizenship.
becomes hard to tell her Of course, she still faces antagonism.
apart from the couple of dozen other Last January, the Australian surfing-gear
surfers waiting for their moment. Low- company Rip Curl debuted an online
erson is patient, and it’s a good while ad featuring Lowerson on the water. In
before she comes cruising in on a south- a voice-over, she describes surfing as a
erly, slow-rolling wave — the kind that dance on a moving surface. There is no
takes you all the way in. At this mo- mention of gender or competition.
ment, none of her pro titles really mat- Soon after the video came out, Ameri-
ter, nor do the culture-war dramas of can pro surfer Bethany Hamilton, who is
being the first out transgender surfer sponsored by Rip Curl and had already
on the competition circuit. The ride is vocally opposed the inclusion of trans
everything. women athletes in women’s categories,
Until last week, Lowerson had spent tweeted, “Male-bodied athletes should
months out of the ocean as she recov- not be competing in female sports.”
ered from gender-affirming surgeries. Though she did not name Lowerson,
Surfing hasn’t felt the same since she Rip Curl pulled the clip two days later,
came to recognize her true identity. claiming it was for Lowerson’s safety.
“It’s easier,” she says with a smile. “I “Which was just the biggest load of bull-
don’t have this fake front up.” shit ever,” Lowerson says. (Hamilton and
It’s a bright, breezy March afternoon Rip Curl did not respond to requests for
at Surfers Point Cafe in Ventura, Califor- comment.)
nia. Lowerson is speaking candidly of Lowerson’s impulse, when Rip Curl
past struggles and how she almost quit had originally reached out, was to turn
surfing when she began to transition in them down because of their association
2020. (She ended up contacting Surfing with Hamilton. “Then I sort of thought,
Coming ashore
Australia, the country’s governing body ‘Well, that’d be a good opportunity to
in Ventura,
for the sport, and worked with it to im- California, in get some visibility,’ ” she explains. In
plement a new policy for trans inclusion March her view, the company was just “naive”
that allowed her to compete in the wom- about the trollish responses they’d get,
en’s division.) Yet her mood matches the despite her warnings.
sunny calm of this beach town. The same hostility had erupted in
Originally from Southwest Australia, she passes for a local with her 2022, when Lowerson won two women’s divisions at the Western Austra-
bleached hair, ski hat, and cropped T-shirt. Lowerson, 45, has been surf- lian state titles. She’d already made history as the first out trans woman to
ing her whole life, and dominated plenty of men’s events over the dec- surf at the pro level two months prior; she just happened to place ninth in
ades, claiming a Western Australian state title as recently as 2019. She that event. It was taking a title that prompted outraged headlines in con-
laughs about acting like an “uber dude” back then, but recalls the difficul- servative media. “For trans athletes, it’s OK for us to compete if we don’t
ty of maintaining a “fake” macho persona: After a couple of weeks on the do well,” Lowerson laments.
water, she’d retreat inward, afraid to leave the house for days, and battle And that’s assuming they’re allowed to compete at all. The organizers
thoughts of self-harm. “I’d try and take my life,” she says. Despite her im- of a May event in Huntington Beach, California — it was meant to be her
pressive career so far, it seems only now, as a woman, in an adopted coun- first following the surgeries — barred Lowerson from participating even
try, that she has the life she was looking for. though they initially accepted her entry fee. She says their reasoning was
“I’ve found the Californian community so much better” than the surf- based on a misinterpretation of an International Surfing Association rule
ing scene back home, Lowerson explains. “Even the middle-aged cis white that she knows inside and out. While it’s frustrating, it hasn’t diminished
guy [here] accepts me in the water. Whereas, generally, in Western Austra- her passion. Lowerson received an outpouring of support from other pros,
lia, it’s the polar opposite. Hopefully it changes.” including members of the world-champion Hawaiian longboarding team,
Lowerson came to the States in 2023 as not just a talented surfer, but who encouraged her to keep competing. Meanwhile, orders are coming
also as a craftswoman who started learning the art of board design as a in for her new board, and she’s working on a memoir about growing up
teen. In collaboration with Mando, a nonbinary board shaper from Cal- during the Nineties surf boom.
ifornia and owner of Mando Surf Co. in Carmel, she spent five years de- “I don’t see myself as a trailblazer,” the modest Lowerson says, though
veloping the Sasha Jane signature model longboard, a “nose rider” with a she expresses a hope that “there’s one girl out there that opens your mag-
mermaid logo — Lowerson’s is pastel pink. To become the brand’s official azine and says, ‘She’s doing it. I can do it.’ ”
PHOTOGRAPH BY JESSICA LEHRMAN ROLLING STONE 59

60 |
60 Rolling | March 2021JUNE 2024
StoneSTONE
ROLLING
THE KILLER
WHALES
March 2021
JUNE 2024 | Rolling
ROLLING STONEStone | 61
61
At the end of October 2022, four men, each in for as long as possible, worried that the orcas might say keep going. In 2020, the Spanish government
his late twenties, set sail from western France to- decide to sink their life raft, too — which would banned small sailing boats from a part of northwest-
ward Lisbon. Augustin Drion, an experienced sailor be catastrophic. But the water was rising quick- ern Spain. Meanwhile, the attacks are spreading. This
from Brittany, was one of them. He had come to lend ly, and they all crowded into the blow-up dinghy. community of orcas, documented in the Strait of Gi-
a hand to a friend from engineering school, Elliot They looked around. The killer whales had gone. braltar since the Roman Empire, consists of nearly
Boyard, who owned the 39-foot sailing vessel. From A Swedish yacht arrived to pick them up. The men 90 animals. Some scientists believe that all of them
Portugal, they planned to cross the Atlantic to the watched the top of the sailboat’s mast disappear be- now ram sailing boats. What triggered the behavior is
Caribbean. They would cruise around the islands for neath the swells. unclear. One hypothesis, though, has taken off: The
O
a year. Then they would return home. orcas are seeking revenge.
The crew had spent several days battling thun- Orcas that have been documented attacking boats
derstorms and high waves in the Bay of Biscay, the are called “Gladis” — from orca gladiator, one of the
treacherous stretch of ocean to the west of France. whale’s scientific names. Killer whales move around
They felt ragged. But on the morning after Hallow- RCAS VERY RARELY GO for boats — that’s supposed in matrilineal units, a mother with up to four genera-
een, the boat, called Smousse, crossed into the still- to be the idea, but something new is happening off tions of descendants. We don’t know which whale, or
er waters off Portugal and the crew was able to relax. the Iberian coast. Since 2020, from the top of Portu- even which unit, was the first to start swimming into
The sun was shining. The breeze was soft, and the gal down to southern Spain, sailors have reported al- sailboats. Some believe it began in 2020 with Gladis
boat was making seven knots. For the first time, con- most a thousand similar attacks. Almost every day, Black — a male juvenile with a deep scar on his back
ditions were calm enough to rely on the autopilot. every spring and summer, yarns from anguished cap- from a wound, probably from a boat. Other research-
Drion had just finished a watch shift and decided to tains attaching photos of their beat-up rudders fill up ers say it was Gladis White, an adult female from an-
join the others lounging on deck. He ducked inside a Facebook group called Orca Attack Reports, which other unit. But whichever was the first, the others
the cabin to grab a book. has more than 60,000 members. The epicenter of quickly began to copy them.
He heard a crash. The boat shook, and Drion lost the carnage is the Strait of Gi- The notion of killer whales
his balance. “What happened?” he shouted up to the braltar. The slim stretch of sea with vendettas against hu-
others. There was banging on the hull from the out- between Spain and Morocco, mans — whether for injuring
side. The crew looked over the side and saw black the gateway to the Mediterra- NOBODY them with boat propellers, or
fins breaking the glassy surface. Five killer whales, nean, is one of the busiest ship- HAS DIED. for picking their tuna hunting
each more than half the length of the boat, their
glossy skin shining in the sunlight, were taking turns
ping lanes in the world.
Many captains now carry il- BUT SAILORS grounds clean, or for ruining
the climate, or for capturing
swimming into the back of the sailboat, ramming the licit firecrackers on board to WORRY IT’S their brothers and sisters and
rudder with their heads. With each crash, the boat
jolted into a new direction.
throw at the whales. Some
blast death metal on Bluetooth
JUST A MATTER imprisoning them in swimming
pools — took the internet by
The crew shut down the electronics and hauled in speakers. Others bash steel OF TIME. storm last summer. You can buy
the mainsail. Speeding off, they thought, could be an sticks against their hulls when stickers and mugs of the Gladis
invitation to chase. The animals were faster. Better orcas approach. Orcas have orcas. “Fuck them boats.” “Eat
to stay put, quiet and still. They sat without talking sunk at least three boats and damaged hundreds the Rich.” “Support for Comrade Gladis.”
for almost an hour, drifting in open ocean. The only more. Nobody has died. Wild orcas, as far as we But these aren’t superyachts. The orcas tend to
sounds were the deep steady blows of orca breath, know, have never killed a human being. But sail- leave fishing boats alone, too. The targets include
the clicks and whistles of killer whale language, the ors worry it’s just a matter of time, while orca biolo- humble craft, sailing boats of the kind you can buy
crunch of several tons of marine mammal — the boat gists are anxious about captains arming themselves for the cost of a cheap used car. For their owners
weighed about the same as one adult male — against and taking things into their own hands. “I wouldn’t and crew, many of whom are not, by sailing stan-
their rudder. be surprised if it’s not too long before we see some- dards, especially wealthy, the attacks are terrifying.
After a while, Drion began to worry about the one attempting to shoot one of these animals,” says The most recent sinking was last October. There is no
boat’s structural integrity. He went down into the Luke Rendell, a marine-mammal expert at the Uni- reliable way to deter them, and sailors are complete-
cockpit. This time, there was water on the floor. A versity of St. Andrews. ly at their mercy.
steady stream flowed in from a crack in the stern. The group of orcas that live around the Iberian Which is why, in January 2022, the Spanish govern-
The boat was quickly flooding, and it was starting to Peninsula are the only killer whales that attack boats, ment asked Renaud de Stephanis, a 48-year-old Span-
sink. Boyard put out a mayday call. The nearest ves- and researchers know very little about them. There ish orca expert, to figure out a solution to the prob-
sel was 60 minutes away, and the men inflated the is only one scientific paper about their new hobby. lem. De Stephanis, who has a grizzled beard, shaggy
lifeboat. They wanted to stay on the sinking boat The Portuguese government has advised sailors to hair, and bronzed aging-surfer skin, has been study-
stop moving if killer whales hit them, and wait for ing this group of orcas since the 1990s. Last Decem-
TOMAS WEBER is a journalist based in London. them to get bored — which is what Drion and Boyard ber, I flew to Gibraltar, crossed the border into Spain
This is his first story for ROLLING STONE. did instinctively. The Spanish authorities, though, by foot, and drove west along the coast toward a ram-

Renaud de de Stephanis remains in his
Stephanis bedroom morning to night, an-
wants to solve nouncing “Today doesn’t exist.”
the orca issue.
Or he waits out bad weather and
rough swells in his sleeping bag
in the living room with an old movie — Gladiator is
his favorite. But as soon as conditions are right, he
slips out onto the strait again, searching for Gladis.
Which is what he’s doing as I wait, passing the
time trying to decipher a Spanish translation of Moby
Dick I find on a shelf in his office, beside crossbow
darts used for extracting whale biopsies. That eve-
ning, as de Stephanis steps through the door just in
time for spaghetti and meatballs, I remember I’d read
he was an ex-rugby player — his cetacean obsession
had followed a short professional career, and he still
has the physique of a feared enforcer. His wet blue
eyes are a little bloodshot. They appear to intimidate
the interns, who were chattering happily until the
moment he walked in.
After dinner, de Stephanis kindles a log fire. He
tells me about changing ancient seafaring routes, pas-
sages sailors had followed since before the ancient
Romans. A few months earlier, he had announced
that boats should avoid the deep waters in the mid-
dle of the strait where the orcas usually strike. Sail-
ors obeyed, and today most vessels in the area hug
the coast. Diverting boats seems to delight him. He
stands up and starts pacing the living room. “Super
fun,” he says. “I like it.”
Avoiding the hot spots is common sense. If de
Stephanis gets such a kick out of rerouting the boats,
though, I wonder as I watch him lope around, isn’t
that something he shares with the killer whales, the
creatures that are his life? Everybody seems to be
having a great time redirecting sailboats. But are the
orcas only having fun, or are the attacks vindictive?
T
HE MORNING OF Jan. 10, 2023, was cloudy and calm
on the Strait of Gibraltar. De Stephanis and his team
of five stepped into an inflatable Zodiac and sped out
of Tarifa harbor in the direction of Morocco, past the
statue of Christ at the port’s entrance. It was the first
day of their government-funded project to under-
stand how to deter the killer whales. First, though,
shackle house perched upon a cliff above the strait to gie points to my bunk. It’s de Stephanis’ daughter’s the crew had to check if they were even around.
spend a week with him. room. I’m to sleep there while the nine-year-old stays It was in these waters that once swam the first kill-
with her mother in Seville. er whales to ever be described in writing. “The killer
H
From the top of the house I can make out the cliffs whale, a creature that is the enemy of the other spe-
of the Moroccan coast. A procession of freight ships cies and the appearance of which can be represent-
chugs between the Pillars of Hercules, two promon- ed by no other description except that of an enor-
IS HOUSE IS difficult to pinpoint in the hills above Tar- tories that frame the entrance to the Atlantic Ocean: mous mass of flesh with savage teeth,” wrote Pliny
ifa, a hippie kite-surfing town at the southernmost tip one on the European side, the other in North Africa. the Elder in A.D. 77, “charge[s] and pierce[s] other
of mainland Europe. I arrive at the door after getting For ancient mariners, the two pillars were a warning: whales like warships ramming.” But in the winter,
lost, and a 27-year-old marine-biology intern named Advance no farther. They marked out the edges of the killer whales are less common in the Strait of Gibral-
Maggie cracks it open. De Stephanis isn’t home right known world and the start of nothingness. Accord- tar. They often follow the bluefin tuna into the At-
now, she says. He’s at sea. “Be careful,” de Steph- ing to classical mythology, the Strait of Gibraltar was lantic, and de Stephanis didn’t expect to see them.
PREVIOUS SPREAD: GREG BLACKBURN/SWNS
anis had warned a few days earlier on Facebook: Hercules’ handiwork — eight miles across at its tight- Standing on the blow-up tube on the side of the boat,
The orcas are now in the strait. Maggie isn’t sure how est point. Why would Hercules make it so narrow? he scanned the horizon. He was not ready to begin
long he’ll be. But I can wait for him here. To stop sea monsters from coming up into the Medi- any experiments. As far as he knew, the orcas never
A shed snakeskin of a sleeping bag lies on the terranean, wrote Diodorus Siculus, an ancient-Greek went for inflatable boats.
threadbare couch. A cold wind whistles through a historian. The protector of mankind had built a bot- Once in the deep water, though, two killer whales
broken window, and cans of energy drinks dot the tleneck for blocking civilization off from the wild. started approaching them quickly from behind. Their
coffee table. “Here, we live like Peter Pan,” de Steph- There are three interns, and they tell me they black-and-white faces were rhythmically emerging
anis tells me a couple of days later — and in a bed- hardly ever see de Stephanis, despite living in his lit- from the water as they swam, their eyes fixed on the
room on the first floor, which is stuffed with toys, tle house for many months. “He has mad-scientist boat. The pair got closer and closer, until one lift-
including a couple of cuddly killer whales, Mag- vibes,” one of them tells me over tapas. Some days, ed the Zodiac out of the water with a gentle tap of
PHOTOGRAPH BY SEBASTIAN LANG JUNE 2024 ROLLING STONE 63

T H E M A D S C I E N T I ST
AND THE KILLER WHALES
its nose. It happened again. Everybody on the boat Mónica González, tells me over email. She adds that hull — but they never do. They are obsessed only
was knocked toward the bow. De Stephanis’ heart López had seen wild orcas “many times,” but that his with the rudder. And the idea that the behavior de-
was pounding. He worried the orcas would destroy personal history “matters little.” veloped in reaction to an injury from a fishing line,
the boat on their first day of work. “I wasn’t scared,” It’s worth pointing out here that de Stephanis has or even because of overfishing, is dubious, because
he tells me with a smirk. “OK, I was fucking scared.” attracted controversy, too. He has studied the orcas the orcas very rarely, to our knowledge, attack fishing
The killer whales played with the blow-up craft for at Loro Parque, Spain’s version of SeaWorld, which boats — for unclear reasons. More than that, though,
about an hour. Sebastian Lang, a German photogra- still keeps four animals in captivity. The conservation is the fact that every killer whale scientist I speak to
pher who lives in Tarifa, had come aboard for the foundation connected to the park has also given him repeats the same thing: These creatures just don’t
ride. A few years earlier, Lang had been snorkeling at grant money. De Stephanis says he opposes keeping carry vendettas.
a nearby spot with pilot whales, long black cetaceans orcas in captivity: We shouldn’t capture any more, he Orcas have “one of the most elaborated brains on
with bulbous foreheads that are the only animals Ibe- tells me — but as long as they are there, they can be the planet,” says Lori Marino, a neuroscientist, ex-
rian orcas appear to fear. One of them took Lang’s useful to biologists. pert in whale behavior, and founder and president of
arm in its mouth and swam down to the depths, de- Gonzàlez tells me she doesn’t care what de Steph- the Whale Sanctuary Project. An orca’s cerebral cor-
livering him back to the surface just before he passed anis thinks of Lòpez’s work. Still, team Lòpez and tex is more convoluted, more intricately folded, than
out. As the orcas rammed the fragile inflatable, Lang team de Stephanis battle it out in Facebook com- a human’s — which gives them an extraordinary abil-
zoned out again, but this time with a feeling of awe. ments — and just as the attacks have become a craze ity to learn, remember, think, and feel. Killer whales
“My brain shut off,” he tells me. “I wanted to look at among the orcas, Lòpez’s trauma-and-revenge lead a rich emotional life, and share some complex
them for hours and hours.” hypothesis quickly became a meme among human feelings with humans, Marino says. They experience
De Stephanis powered back to shore at top speed. onlookers. “Killer whales orchestrating revenge at- empathy, they mourn their dead, and they are prob-
Over the next few months, he and the team ventured tacks on boats,” wrote the New York Post in 2020. ably smart enough to understand why an individu-
out as often as weather allowed. When a killer whale “Revenge of the orcas?” asked the Washington Post al might want to harm another in vengeance — to im-
approached them, he stuck a GPS tracker onto its in May 2023. part a lesson, for example, or to discourage future
shiny back. This location data led to his recommen- Every orca researcher I speak to agrees that attacks. Which makes it even more remarkable that,
dation that boats should avoid deep water. He exper- Lòpez’s hypothesis is implausible. Even Drion, whose in the wild, orcas never do.
imented with keeping going versus stopping — and experience with the orcas felt like an attack, com- In the 1960s and 1970s, when orcas in the
found that continuing led to fewer and less destruc- pares the whales to a powerful dog playing rough northeastern Pacific were repeatedly terrorized by
tive attacks. A stationary boat, he found, makes for with a small child. It feels scary, and it’s certainly boats that kidnapped their relatives and put them
a better target. dangerous — but to the dog, it’s just a game. into captivity, they never attacked vessels of any
He tried out a pinger that played a high-pitched “If they really wanted to sink the boat,” Drion tells kind. Unlike highly intelligent terrestrial mam-
sound, which some sailors say repels the whales, and me, “they would just jump on it and the game is over.” mals, such as chimps, gorillas, or humans, there
found it seemed to attract them instead. He played But the attacks could still be a result of how hu- is very little evidence that wild killer whales have
recordings of pilot whale calls — but he worried they mans have harmed killer whales, de Stephanis says. ever sought revenge. (Although orcas in captivity
would drive the orcas out of the strait altogether, In 2010, overfishing decimated the bluefin tuna pop- have killed trainers, those animals were probably
so he stopped. He dragged decoy rudders behind ulation. During that period, the orcas birthed fewer psychologically disturbed by their environment, says
the boat to see which designs they preferred, and calves. With fewer siblings to play with, de Stephanis Marino.) When a chimpanzee steals food, the vic-
he deployed a prototype deterrent rudder covered wonders, were boisterous juveniles choosing boats tim often retaliates. An aggrieved macaque will set-
with soft spikes. It appeared to be effective. What he as their playmates instead? OK — but then why are tle scores, sometimes attacking a family member of
failed to prove, though, was the reason for the be- the adults joining in? That’s not so surprising, he tells the perpetrator. But orcas don’t do that. “They have
havior — although what conclusive evidence of that me. Humans aren’t so different. adapted in a way that eliminates
would look like is hard to imagine. Still, de Stephanis His daughter is trying to teach the need for aggression,” says
has a theory. him TikTok dances.
IF THEY Deborah Giles, a killer whale
O
Whether or not that story researcher at the University of
holds water, de Stephanis is WANTED TO Washington.
convinced Lòpez’s trauma-
and-revenge idea is wrong.
SINK THE BOAT, I wanted to speak with Hal
Whitehead, the co-author of
N A BRIGHT and clear day a few months later, de The behavior is play through THEY’D JUMP The Cultural Lives of Whales and
Stephanis was approached by a group of orcas, in-
cluding one with a deep wound gouged into his
and through. But as de Steph-
anis fills the house with chaos,
ON IT AND THE Dolphins, a book that gripped
me for days. Over Zoom, I
dorsal fin. It was Gladis Black. De Stephanis shows shouting and blasting Inde- GAME IS OVER. ask Whitehead, who is a pro-
me underwater video he had taken with a GoPro pendence Day at 8 a.m., I can’t fessor of biology at Dalhousie
attached to a stick. Beneath the boat, Gladis Black shake the idea that this inter- University in Nova Scotia, why
rotates into a vertical position, and presses and rubs pretation, that it’s nothing but horseplay, overlaps al- orcas might have evolved to not hold grudges against
the pointed black tip of his face against the rudder. most too neatly with what he himself seems to share other animals. He explains that while land mam-
His face and white chin are covered with scratches with the orcas. mals can be territorial, territory isn’t really a thing
and scars. His connection to killer whales has zero to do with in the sea. With few fixed resources in the ocean,
Was he seeking revenge? This theory, it seemed, what people sometimes talk about after swimming there’s less to go to war about. “It’s fluid. It’s flexible.
had originated with Alfredo López, an animal with dolphins. It has nothing mystical about it, noth- Animals are moving around, here and there,” he
biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal. ing to do with wisdom, intuition, or serenity. What he says. And perhaps — now Whitehead is musing — we
Lòpez believes that one of the orcas could have been shares with the animals is a rambunctious physicali- can learn something from that. “Some of us think
harmed, perhaps by a fishing line, and that the be- ty, brute strength, friskiness, fluid rhythms of atten- that aggression and war are inevitable,” he tells me.
havior might be a response to injury. “Complete bull- tion. He keeps reminding me of an unruly juvenile. Is But if sophisticated forms of ocean intelligence can
shit,” says de Stephanis, who has known Lòpez since there a chance he could be wrong? When pushed, he teach complex land-bound brains a lesson, he says,
1999 through attending whale conferences, and has admits he can’t rule out the trauma-and-revenge the- it is that more-equal ways of dividing up resourc-
little respect for him. “I call him ‘the expert,’ ” he ory completely. There is, he estimates, a five percent es across territories could make war and aggression
says with a mocking smile. “He’s no friend of mine.” chance it is true. In any case, the probability is not less likely.
He adds: “He knows I know that he has never seen zero. “Never,” he tells me. “I’m a scientist.” What looks like revenge against humans, White-
an orca.” head says, is a behavior that may be a kind of culture,
When I reach out to Lòpez, he is too busy to speak STILL, DE STEPHANIS is probably right. If the orcas do a way this community of orcas now strengthens its
with me. His team is inundated with whale carcass- intend to destroy boats and harm people on them, group identity. Orca obsessions can quickly turn into
es that keep washing up on the coasts, his colleague, they could do that easily by smashing holes in the collective fads. Take their eating habits. Most wild

Last summer, animals are not fussy gourmands.
killer whales But the orcas that live in the seas
targeted two around Antarctica eat tiny pen-
racing boats.
guins, and when they kill them,
they discard everything other than
the breast muscles. Orcas that eat other whales usu-
ally enjoy only the lips and the tongue and leave
the rest to wash up or rot. Each community of kill-
er whales speaks in its own dialect, and off the coast
of Australia, in a place called Shark Bay, orcas adorn
their noses with ornamental sponges. In the 1980s,
the salmon-eating orcas of the northeastern Pacific
fashioned hats from the carcasses of their prey. They
wore them all summer.
Outside of humans, the complexity and stabili-
ty of these cultural forms is unparalleled. Boat ram-
ming is just the latest of these practices. But when
we, another eminent cultural animal, seek to un-
derstand what killer whales are up to, we can’t help
but see them through the pinhole of our own cul-
tural practices and group dynamics. We look be-
neath the surface with ape eyes, and we see territo-
riality and retaliation where we should see cultural
behaviors that have little to do with land-based vio-
lence — which results in orcas with apelike vendet-
tas going viral.
F
OR MOST OF my stay with de Stephanis, the ocean is
too rough to go out upon. On my last day, though,
there’s a window of calm, and he wants to show me
the orcas before I leave. I offer to drive us to the port
in my rental car. He thinks I’ll probably drive too
slowly, and bombs down the hill on his motorbike.
At the port, we meet a man named Salva, who will
control the boat while de Stephanis scans the sur-
face for fins. We hop onto the Zodiac, motor past the
Jesus statue and out into the strait, and squint into
the horizon until our faces hurt.
We see hundreds of silvery dolphins breach and
spin in the air. We see a pod of pilot whales and a lan-
guid sunfish drifting on the surface. We see a yacht in
the distance between a stream of cargo ships, under-
way in deep water. The captain is resisting de Steph-
anis’ advice. “That could get him into trouble,” says
de Stephanis. But the yacht will be lucky: The killer
whales are nowhere to be seen. They are probably
already hunting tuna in the open ocean. Perhaps, I
think, they’ve abandoned their craze. Maybe they’ve
even developed a new fixation.
I drive back to Gibraltar feeling a little deflated,
and while I wait for my flight, I walk up the Europe-
an Pillar of Hercules. Near the top, a sign warns me
about macaques, the only wild monkeys that live on
the continent, which “may behave aggressively.” For
a few minutes, I watch them lounging peacefully in
the sun, then turn around and fly home.
But two months later, the orcas, fresh from the
BREND SCHUIL/TEAM JAJO/THE OCEAN RACE, 3
open seas, swim back into the Strait of Gibraltar. At

dusk on Feb. 4, their fad apparently now their tradi-
tion, a way of life, five individuals begin to ram the
back of a large sailing boat, in rough seas six miles off
the coast of Tangiers. “We saw them heading straight
for us,” says the French captain. “Aggressive and live-
ly and very fast.”
It’s the first incident in the strait of what is sure to
be a perilous season. For the orcas, it marks the start
of a fun-filled spring.

DEVIL
WITH
A
CA USE
KID ROCK was once America’s favorite hard-partying rock star,
a gregarious showman able to bring together rap, rock, and
country audiences. Then he went die-hard MAGA, dividing
his fan base and leaving many wondering what the hell happened
B Y D AV I D P E I S N E R PHO T O I L LUST R AT ION BY M I K E MC QUA DE
66
GUTTER PHOTO CREDIT
March 2021 | Rolling Stone | 67

DE V I L W I T H
A
C A USE
W H EN YOU V I SIT
BOB RITCHIE
AT H I S H O M E
in the jagged hills outside Nashville, the guy who will shoulders from underneath a white-and-red baseball among conservatives. “I don’t want to hurt people’s
likely greet you at the door is a tall, well-dressed, hat with the phrase “This Bud’s for You” emblazoned jobs and stuff like that when they don’t have any dog
exceedingly polite gentleman who goes by “Uncle on the front of it, framing a face that, at 53, looks in the fight, but there’s a whole lot of other compa-
Tom.” Because of course he does. Ritchie makes his more weathered than boyish. He claims he didn’t re- nies we should be going after.” Bulldozing past the in-
living as Kid Rock, but a big part of being Kid Rock alize he was wearing the hat — something he’ll claim herent contradictions in that sentence, Ritchie uses
these days involves doing things that are simultane- again two hours later to Fox News host Laura Ingra- the rest of his Fox appearance to inveigh against “DEI
ously provocative, offensive, and, at least to him, ham, when he insists I join him in the back of an un- crap,” predict electoral victory for Donald Trump in
funny. It tracks, then, that a middle-aged white guy marked van in his driveway to record an appearance Michigan, and suggest that listening to the national
who began his career more than three decades ago in on her show — but I find this difficult to believe. The anthem will make “liberal tears fall like rain.”
thrall of a Black art form, but who has since thrown hat gives him an opening to retell the story of his beef Kid Rock wasn’t always like this. When he first
his lot in with an overwhelmingly white political and recent reconciliation with Anheuser-Busch. broke through with Devil Without a Cause in the late
movement criticized for its racist rhetoric, would Last year, Ritchie responded to the company’s de- Nineties, on the heels of an alt-rock era whose big-
have a white butler named after a racial slur aimed at cision to partner with transgender social media influ- gest stars — Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder, Chris Cornell
Black people who are overly accommodating to the — were often cripplingly conflicted about the very
white establishment. It’s all a little dizzying. Like so
much in the world of Kid Rock circa 2024, it leaves
“I DON’T idea of stardom, Ritchie made rap rock full of swag-
ger, bravado, and party-starting anarchy. Even as he
you wondering, “Is he serious? Is he fucking with S U G A R C OAT S H I T , began hinting at a rightward political lean in the late
2000s, he still managed to inhabit a cultural middle
me? Does he himself even know?”
At any rate, there I am on a Thursday afternoon B U T E V E RY T H I N G ground, crossing boundaries between musical genres
in April, being ushered by the aforementioned Uncle and political ideologies with an easygoing, can’t-we-
Tom into a house that itself feels like a joke devised to BECAME THIS all-just-get-drunk-together nonchalance. Whether he
test whether its visitors get it. Modeled to look like the was performing with Run-D.M.C., (briefly) marrying
White House, the extravagant, airy mansion is deco- GOTCHA MOMENT. Pamela Anderson, or getting into a fight at a Waffle
rated with taxidermied hunting trophies and neon
beer signs. The bathroom hand towels are mono-
L O O K A RO U N D . I House at 5 a.m., Kid Rock’s very existence felt like a
100-decibel reminder that rock & roll was supposed
grammed with an “R,” and a mirror near the sink has
a naked woman in a “Liberty” headband painted on it
L I V E I N M Y OW N to be fun. ROLLING STONE itself was all-in on this
version of Kid Rock, twice putting him on the maga-
in pink. Images of Kid Rock’s platinum records adorn WO R L D . A N D I T ’ S zine’s cover solo and declaring him “the king of old-
the garage doors. Ritchie’s entire sprawling 214-acre school partying and take-no-prisoners boasting.”
compound, which includes a saloon, a studio, and a G R E AT .” Over the past decade, though, he’s grown increas-
cavernous hangar with a pickleball court, a basketball ingly polarizing, eager to troll liberals and engage in
hoop, and the original General Lee from The Dukes of encer Dylan Mulvaney for a Bud Light promotion by one culture-war dust-up after another. He’s wrapped
Hazzard in it, feels like what a 13-year-old boy might posting a video of him shooting up cans of the beer himself in all things Trump and become as much a
sketch if you asked him to design his dream home. with an MP5 submachine gun, and declaring “Fuck fixture of the MAGA Cinematic Universe as Steve Ban-
Tom procures a can of Miller Lite for me from the Bud Light. Fuck Anheuser-Busch.” The partnership non, Mike Lindell, or Kari Lake. In fact, just before
fridge in the kitchen, then leads me to the back patio, between an iconic beer company and a trans woman we crowd into that van for the Fox News appearance,
where Ritchie is sitting with a charcuterie board on had already prompted a right-wing boycott of the Ritchie flashes his cellphone toward me to show he’s
the table in front of him, and the breathtaking pan- beer maker, and Ritchie’s stunt fanned the flames. He calling the man he now winkingly refers to as “one of
orama of the surrounding countryside staring him in was criticized for encouraging anti-trans bigotry and my besties.” Trump doesn’t pick up. “I was going to
the face. Ritchie stands, shakes my hand, and asks violence. Far from being repentant, Ritchie viewed tell him I’m going on Laura Ingraham,” Ritchie tells
Tom for a white wine with ice and a cigar. the company’s subsequent stock-price wobble as vin- me. “He loves to watch when I do Fox hits.”
“That’s his real name, by the way,” Ritchie says dication, and claims its top brass reached out to him I’d started working on a story about Kid Rock’s
with a sharp laugh. “Don’t give me some shit in the personally, eager to mend fences. As he puts it to In- transformation from everyone’s favorite life-of-the-
article.” graham, even though the company “messed up,” he’s party rock star into this fervent MAGA warrior nearly
Ritchie is wearing dark sunglasses, a black shirt, moved on from the boycott. (Anheuser-Busch didn’t a year earlier. Until a couple of days before our meet-
jeans, and boots that he says “may or may not be respond to my request for comment on this meeting.) ing at his house, I’d given up hope that he’d talk to
snakeskin.” His stringy blond hair runs straight to his “We’ve got bigger targets,” he says, referencing me. I’d reached out repeatedly to his manager to try
Planet Fitness, which is currently in the crosshairs of to set up an interview but got no response. As I began
Contributor DAVID PEISNER profiled “professional the right-wing outrage machine for its trans-inclusive contacting others in his inner circle — friends, band-
revolutionary” Fergie Chambers in April. policies, and Ben & Jerry’s, a perpetual bugaboo mates — Ritchie was telling them not to talk to me. I

I grew up in the Detroit suburbs in that same era,
and when I first sit down with Ritchie, we reminisce a
THE MAGA bit about living there back then. In the 1980s, Detroit
WHISPERER
was in the midst of a long, painful, and still ongoing
Ritchie and Trump
ringside at a transition. The auto industry had built the city into a
2023 UFC fight in cosmopolitan hub in the first half of the 20th century.
Miami. The rock Well-paying factory jobs drew workers from the South
star is proud of his and nourished a thriving polyglot middle class. By
relationship with the 1940, it was one of the largest cities in the U.S. Start-
former president
ing in the 1960s, though, a string of developments —
and, in addition to
golfing with Trump, higher gas prices, the rise of foreign automakers, the
frequently calls him shuttering of factories, the 1967 riots, and disastrous
to chat, especially city-planning decisions — changed Detroit’s trajectory.
when Ritchie is about The city’s population began to contract. Specifically,
to appear on political white families and white-owned businesses moved to
talk shows. “He loves
the suburbs in droves, shrinking the tax base and fur-
to watch when I do
Fox hits,” Ritchie ther accelerating this trend.
says, and refers to It’s hard to overstate how frantic the white flight
Trump as “one of my from Detroit has been. In 1940, the city was more
besties.” than 90 percent white. Today, it’s barely more than
10 percent. The exodus fueled a
sense of fear, resentment, and dis-
trust between the white suburban
population and Black residents of
the city. During the years Ritchie
and I were growing up, the divide
between Detroit and the surround-
ing region hardened into a fixed
color line drawn right at the city’s
northern border, Eight Mile Road.
Culturally, Romeo had more in
common with small towns in rural

parts of the state that became infa-
CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES mous for making Michigan a hot-
Ritchie performing in front of a Confederate flag at the Trump Taj bed of militia activity than it did
Mahal Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 2004. “I never flew the with Detroit. As much as the auto
flag with hate in my heart.… I love Black people,” he said in 2011. industry had drawn Black workers
from places like Georgia, Alabama,
pressed ahead and spoke to more than a dozen peo- media bias and bolster his status on the right. Or it and Mississippi, it had also attracted a steady diet of
ple who’d been close to him at various points in his could just be that he’s got something to promote, a white workers from below the Mason-Dixon Line and
career. Many were dismayed at the extreme political new festival he co-founded called Rock the Country parts of Appalachia. They brought with them a roman-
turn Kid Rock had taken. that’s playing in seven smaller cities and towns across ticism about the South and fostered an enthusiasm
Producer and engineer Mike E. Clark, who has a Appalachia and the Southeast this spring and sum- for country music that endured in the area. Bobby
long history with Ritchie going back to the late 1980s, mer. At any rate, by the time we’re done with Laura Bare’s 1963 Top 10 country hit, his version of “Detroit
compared it to “losing a family member,” and said Ingraham, we’ve blown way past our allotted time, City,” describes an autoworker homesick for “those
he no longer hung up his Kid Rock platinum records but he’s just getting warmed up. Soon enough, he’ll cotton fields and home.” Twenty-five years later, it
“because of what it represents now.” Kenny Olson, get drunk and belligerent, and the evening will go wasn’t hard to find white kids in the Detroit suburbs
PREVIOUS SPREAD: IMAGES IN ILLUSTRATION BY JEFFREY MAYER/WIREIMAGE; MANDEL NGAN/AFP/GETTY
who played lead guitar for Ritchie for more than a way off the rails, but at the moment, things are still driving pickup trucks adorned with Confederate-
IMAGES. THIS PAGE, FROM TOP: CHRIS POLK/FILMMAGIC; JEFF BOTTARI/ZUFFA LLC/GETTY IMAGES
decade starting in the mid-1990s, was just perplexed. pretty cordial. He tells me that until a few weeks ago, flag bumper stickers, blasting country music.
“I don’t understand where a lot of this came from,” he’d done very few interviews in the past decade. Ritchie tells me that his grandfather had family
he told me. “I’ve always felt music should inspire “I don’t sugarcoat shit, but everything became this from Kentucky. “They grew up on mountain music
people, not divide people. A lot of people from back gotcha moment,” he says. “That’s why I’ve been turn- and hillbilly music.”
in the day ask me, ‘What’s going on?’ I don’t know.” ing you down for so long. I don’t need it.” He mo- Although Ritchie often describes his upbringing
In an age when many people have a story about tions with his hand back toward his house and then as “middle class,” it was beyond what most peo-
a relative who arrived at Thanksgiving in a red forward toward the stunning view of the deep, green ple would ascribe to the term. His father, Bill, who
MAGA hat, and shortly thereafter started forwarding valley in front of him. “Look around. I live in my own died in February, owned a large, successful Lincoln-
BitChute videos and QAnon memes, the idea that a world. And it’s great.” Mercury dealership in the northern suburb of Ster-
rich white guy would become a die-hard Trump sup- ling Heights, and for a time was president of the
T
porter is not exactly shocking. But Ritchie always O UNDERSTAND WHERE Kid Rock Detroit Automobile Dealers Association, an influ-
seemed to be in on the joke of his outrageous Kid ended up, you need to understand ential trade group. The family lived in an expan-
Rock persona. These days, though, it’s hard not to where he started. Although Romeo, sive 5,628-square-foot estate, built on more than five
wonder who’s at the wheel. Michigan, is often described as a De- acres that included apple orchards, an in-ground
Obviously, the best person to address this is Ritchie troit suburb, when Ritchie was grow- pool, tennis courts, and a horse barn.
himself, so I sent one last Hail Mary to his manager. ing up there in the Seventies and “He had a guesthouse bigger than my family
Much to my surprise, this time, I got a response: an Eighties, such a designation was a stretch. The De- home,” says Wesley “Wes Chill” Gandy, a local rapper
offer to meet Ritchie two days later for what was sup- troit suburbs were geographically sprawling even who met Ritchie when the latter was only about 14.
posed to be a 90-minute tête-à-tête. then, but most people probably would have consid- At the time, Ritchie was just a skinny kid who knew
I’m not really sure what changed his mind. It could ered Romeo at the distant edge of that sprawl. The how to operate some pretty basic recording equip-
be that he knows a contentious story in ROLLING Ritchie family home was on the outskirts of Romeo it- ment. Gandy would come to Ritchie’s house to re-
STONE will give him a platform to shout about liberal- self, around an hour’s drive from downtown Detroit. cord nearly every weekend, and occasionally Ritchie

DE V I L W I T H
A
C A USE
would visit Gandy’s home on the west side of Detroit. perception that Ritchie did little to help those who’d But the relative isolation bred creative freedom.
“You didn’t see white kids in my neighborhood,” says given him safe passage in the Detroit rap community Ritchie’s ambition and his omnivorous taste in
Gandy. “It was me that brought him into the city and left a bad taste in the mouths of some of his compatri- music attracted a diverse crew of artists into his
introduced him to the Detroit culture. Bob is like a ots. According to Brian Harmon, a rapper who goes orbit in these years: Lonnie Motley and Shirley
sponge. He absorbed a lot.” by “Champtown” and who was one of the leaders of Hayden of Funkadelic; R&B singer Thornetta Davis;
Ritchie began DJ’ing at parties and impressed with the Beast Crew, Jive was interested in signing him as horrorcore-rap pioneer Esham; Michael and Andrew
his turntable skills. He connected with a group of art- well, but claims Ritchie undermined the deal. “This Nehra, who co-founded the soul-rock outfit Robert
ists known as the Beast Crew, and with them started is the worst ZIP code in America,” Harmon says. “We Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise; Vinnie Dombroski
rapping, too. In the mid-Eighties, Ritchie’s interest get a bag of chips, we share it amongst each other. from Sponge; Tino Gross of blues rockers the Howl-
in hip-hop felt like a repudiation of his privileged up- We get a Faygo two-liter, we get five cups. Kid Rock, ing Diablos; Matt O’Brien of funk-inflected post-punk
bringing and caused a rift with his father. “You could growing up around rich parents, didn’t quite under- group Big Chief; Eric Hoegemeyer of the glammy
tell his father wasn’t happy about him being around stand sharing.” dance-rock outfit Charm Farm.
kids from the inner city,” says Gandy. “His mom, his When I ask Ritchie about this, he shakes his head. “I was the joke,” says Ritchie. “It was not cool to
sisters, his brother, they were nice. But his father re- “I’ve got a lot of love for Champ, but he’s full of shit be a white rapper.”
ally was upset about him pursuing rap.” in more ways than you can fucking imagine,” he Although Kid Rock’s music was assiduously apolit-
Ritchie’s dad loved music, but his taste ran toward ical back then, there was an inclusive, open-minded
rock & roll and classic country. “He didn’t under- approach to it that many of those involved found
stand what I was doing, rightfully so,” says Ritchie, “ I ’ M PA RT O F T H E inspiring. Ritchie assembled a live band he called
“this white kid from an upper-middle-class family
running around the hood doing all this stuff.”
P RO B L E M ,” R I T C H I E Twisted Brown Trucker that embodied that spirit.
“We were into funk, R&B, rock, the blues, swampy
Bill Ritchie, a registered Republican, had been SAYS . “ S O M E T I M E S Southern country sounds,” says Olson. “We had this
president and sales manager at Crest Lincoln- fearless way of approaching the music.”
Mercury before he bought the dealership outright in I LOOK IN THE Devil Without a Cause, released in 1998, was the
product of this approach. The album eventually sold
1972. According to testimony he gave to the Federal
Trade Commission, unionized mechanics and em-
M I R RO R A N D A M more than 11 million copies. At the time, Ritchie’s
ployees at his dealership went on strike in 1971, the LIKE, ‘WHY DON’T main ideological commitment was to the doctrine of
sex, drugs, and rock & roll. From the stage at Wood-
year Bob was born, and the strike turned violent. Bill
said his family was threatened. While driving home YO U S H U T T H E F U C K stock ’99, he told the audience, “You want me to
one night, he was run off the road by a couple of get political? Well, this is about as deep as Kid Rock
cars. After his next-door neighbor’s front porch was UP TOO?’ ” thinks: Monica Lewinsky is a fuckin’ ho, and Bill Clin-
bombed, police apparently told Bill that his house ton is a goddamned pimp!”
had been the intended target. Bill threatened to hire Over the decade or so that followed, Ritchie
nonunion workers to replace his striking employees, says. “I’m not going to get into it because I’m sure seemed more enamored with the spectacle of poli-
and ultimately, Bill claimed, the strike ended without he’s got his side, but I’d take everything there with tics than any particular issues. He met Clinton and
him making any concessions. a grain of salt.” performed at an inaugural event for Barack Obama.
When I relay this story to Ritchie, he’s never heard Kid Rock’s Jive debut, Grits Sandwiches for Break- Even though he backed Mitt Romney, a fellow Michi-
it, but it fits comfortably with the man he knew. “He fast, a sex-obsessed goof equally indebted to the twin gander, in his bid to unseat Obama in 2012, when he
was conflicted on unions,” he says. “He’d always say poles of late-Eighties party rap, the Beastie Boys’ Li- saw Obama at the Kennedy Center Honors the follow-
they started as a great purpose. But at his heyday of censed to Ill and 2 Live Crew’s As Nasty As They Wanna ing year, Ritchie said there were “no hard feelings.…
the dealership, he was anti-union. I remember him Be, didn’t connect with audiences, and amid a subse- You respect the office of the president of the United
being like, ‘Fuck those unions. They’re all run by quent Vanilla Ice-induced backlash, he was dropped States, and the great thing is, in four years we get to
fucking crooks.’ ” from the label. Back in Detroit, licking his wounds, choose again.”
Ritchie has talked a lot about his troubled early Ritchie experimented musically, leaning more on Even as he grew more confident speaking about
relationship with his father and poured it into the classic rock and metal. The Clark co-produced re- himself as a Republican, Ritchie consistently criti-
1993 song “My Oedipus Complex.” “I never liked my sult, The Polyfuze Method, was released on an inde- cized the party’s stance on issues like abortion and
old man,” he sings. A few verses later, he describes pendent label in 1993. The same year, he recorded gay marriage. As he told ROLLING STONE in 2013: “I
his father advising him to “keep with your own and an amped-up version of Hank Williams Jr.’s “A Coun- tend to vote Republican, but I don’t like the hardcore
don’t fuck up our gene pool” by “play[ing] the fool try Boy Can Survive.” views on either side. I’m not in bed with anybody.
with a different color,” a reference to Ritchie father- “Kid Rock gravitated toward his audience,” says I’d probably be more libertarian, but I’m a firm be-
ing his only child with a Black woman, which he did Chris “Doc Roun-Cee” Pouncy, another Beast Crew liever you have to pick a side. If you think differently,
during this era. member. “If his audience was predominantly white, that’s fine. I’d love to grab a beer and hear why you
“That’s how I was feeling at the time,” Ritchie says which they were, he was going to play to them.” think that way.”
now of the song. “That was a stressful time when Harmon recalls a conversation with Ritchie around During the time Ritchie was stumping for Rom-
my son was born. A white kid, not married, bring- this time about his change in artistic direction. “He ney, he was living part-time in Malibu, where one of
ing home a half-Black kid to a Catholic well-to-do straight-up told me, ‘I need to get back in touch with his neighbors was the actor and progressive activist
family.” Ritchie’s father struggled to adapt at first. my whiteness,’ ” says Harmon. Gandy remembers Sean Penn. The two unlikely friends were drinking
“There were borderline things, like maybe using the Ritchie using the same phrase. scotch at Ritchie’s house one night, along with Jame-
n-word at times, but my son and my dad became “That sounds like something I’d say,” Ritchie ad- son Stafford, who’d begun working with Ritchie in
best friends. People say that people can’t change. mits. “I don’t give a fuck how people take it.” the late Nineties as a videographer. Penn and Ritchie
Yes, they fucking can.” He says he was proud to see The Detroit music scene during those years was argued constantly over politics, but in the increas-
his son, who is now a father himself and lives near- small and felt a bit like a cultural backwater. Motown ingly heated political environment saw their endur-
by, tearing up at his father’s funeral. had long since decamped to California, and the city ing friendship as an example to emulate. They de-
Ritchie’s own relationship with his father would hadn’t produced a credible star in more than a dec- cided to make a short film called Americans, which
eventually turn around. “Ironically enough, when ade. There was a feeling then that mirrored the city’s Stafford co-wrote and directed. It opens in a bar, and
you make some money, it makes it a whole lot easier depopulation trend: The only way to succeed was within a couple of minutes Penn and Ritchie are lob-
for people to understand,” he says. to leave. bing politically tinged insults at each other. As they’re
In 1990, Ritchie headed to New York and signed “It was hard to get a record deal in Detroit then,” about to come to blows, a news report flashes onto
with Jive Records. Back in Detroit, there was grum- says Olson. “Chad Smith from the Red Hot Chili Pep- the bar’s TV, announcing the deaths of 26 Marines in
bling about Jive elevating a white rapper out of what pers, Joey Mazzola from Sponge, and I all migrated Afghanistan, which prompts them to hug it out. The
was often called the Blackest city in America. The out to California at different points.” message is clear even before it flashes on the screen

at the film’s conclusion in big, block letters: “Don’t diced. He’s not. How can you be prejudiced if your the Country. Amid a sea of American flags, Trump
Let Politics Divide Us. Thinking Differently … Is What son is Black?” 2024 merch, and more than 25,000 fans, Kid Rock
Made This Country Great.” Others made the same point. “I never got the rac- will be introduced onstage by Tucker Carlson, then
Ritchie says he still believes this. “That thing’s ist, homophobic vibe from him,” says Barbara Pay- launch into a set that will include riffs about open
more relevant now than when we made it,” he tells ton, a backing singer who toured with Kid Rock in borders, high taxes, and a declaration that “Joe Biden
me between puffs on his cigar. “The message isn’t the 2000s. “As a gay woman, I wouldn’t have worked can kiss my motherfucking Anglo-Saxon ass.” At one
getting across.” for him if I did.” point, a video of Trump will appear on the screen be-
I ask whether he thinks he’s helping much on that Even some, like Harmon, who’ve had personal hind Ritchie, lauding Kid Rock and his fans as “hard-
score. gripes with Ritchie are inclined to give him the ben- working, God-fearing rock & roll patriots,” before ex-
“I’m part of the problem,” he acknowledges. “I’m efit of the doubt, at least to a point. “Do I think Kid horting them to “make America rock again.”
one of the polarizing people, no question. Sometimes Rock is straight-up racist? No,” Harmon says. “Do I Even as Ritchie grew more politically outspoken
I bitch about other people, then I look in the mirror think Kid Rock is a dickhead? Yes.” during Trump’s presidency, he’d nearly always kept
and I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah, why don’t you politics off his albums. That ended
shut the fuck up too?’ ” with his 2022 release, Bad Reputation.
So, is this mostly an impulse- On the blustery first single, “Don’t Tell
control problem? Me How to Live” — a title that sums
“It’s a rich-guy issue,” he says. “No up his political philosophy as well
fucks left. I’m not going to get it right as any — he rails against snowflakes,
every time, but I know my heart’s fake news, participation trophies, and
right. I want the best for this country.” easily-offended millennials. “We
Back in the early 2010s, a sort the People” recycles far-right Covid
of radical centrism was still baked talking points — “Wear your mask,
into Kid Rock’s brand. He’d banked take your pills/Now a whole genera-
enough goodwill to be able to get tion’s mentally ill/Fuck Fauci!” — then
away with occasionally performing turns the anti-Biden meme “Let’s Go
in front of a Confederate flag. When Brandon!” into a shout-along chorus.
I mention it, he immediately grabs It would be easy to see his right-
a photo album sitting nearby, flips ward political turn as a cynical busi-
it open, and points to a shot of him- ness decision. After all, Kid Rock is
self from the early days of his career, nothing if not a crowd-pleaser. The
wearing a shirt designed to look like same way he gave his fans what they
the rebel battle flag. Next to him in wanted musically, shifting from hip-
the photo are all three members of hop toward rock and country, he’s
Run-D.M.C. also met them where they are ideo-
“Nobody said a fucking word,” he logically. “This is a guy who has al-
tells me. “No one. That was the thing until all this ways had his pulse on who his audience is,” says
woke shit started happening.” Thomas Valentino, who was Ritchie’s lawyer for more
Some Black members of his band gave him a pass. STILL THE KID than a decade, starting in the mid-Nineties. “Right
A 19-year-old Ritchie with D-Nice of Boogie Down now, he recognizes 90 percent of the people who
Misty Love, a former longtime backup singer for Kid
Productions and Big D of Ultramagnetic MCs
Rock from the mid-Nineties through the mid-2000s, come to his shows are buying into what he’s doing
(from left) at Heavy D’s NYC birthday party in 1990
says the flag “didn’t mean anything back when he and saying politically. He also leans that way, but he’s
used it. It was just part of the backdrop.” a smart business guy. If he thinks he’s going to make
R
Ritchie insists there was no deeper intent than ITCHIE WAS ONE of the first entertain- money taking a certain position, then I think a lot of
that. “I was using the Confederate flag because I love ment figures to declare allegiance to those things are driven by business.”
Lynyrd Skynyrd, and I think it just looks cool.” Trump, in an interview with this mag- Stafford, who remains close with Ritchie, says
In 2011, when he received an NAACP Award in De- azine. “I’m digging Donald Trump,” he Ritchie is “definitely not faking” his political alle-
troit, protesters marched outside, denouncing his said in early 2016, before the Republi- giance. “But I don’t think he’ll miss a good opportu-
association with the flag. Right before he walked on- can primaries had begun. “My feeling: nity for some publicity.” Ritchie, he believes, is aware
stage to receive the award, he says, the head of the Let the business guy run it like a business. And his of the trade-off he’s making. “A lot of longtime fans
organization’s Detroit chapter, the Rev. Wendell An- campaign has been entertaining as shit.” have said, ‘Look, I can’t do this anymore.’ But he’ll
thony, asked him if he’d really performed with the What began as a mild flirtation quickly bloomed probably tell you, ‘For every one that leaves, an-
flag. After Ritchie admitted he had, he says Anthony into a full-blown love affair. Love wonders half- other three will come.’ If you go through comments
told him, “Oh, you ain’t racist. You just dumb.” (An- seriously if Ritchie’s “been brainwashed. The Trump- sections, you’ll find a lot that are like, ‘I didn’t even
thony did not respond to my request for confirma- sters are attracted to him, and I think they’re absorb- like Kid Rock, didn’t like his music, but damn if I’m
tion.) Once onstage, Ritchie told the audience, “I ing him,” she says. “Because the Kid Rock people not going to go to the shows and support this guy.’ ”
never flew the flag with hate in my heart.… I love know now isn’t the Kid Rock I was around for years.” Ritchie has always had an intuitive understanding
Black people.” But four years later, outside an exhibit Over the past few years, Kid Rock shows have of marketing, promotion, and how to make money.
Ritchie funded at the Detroit Historical Museum, started to resemble Trump rallies. Clark, who helped He tells me that once Trump was in office and the
AL PEREIRA/MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
where protesters returned to raise the same issue, craft Kid Rock’s last major hit, “All Summer Long,” vehemence of the opposition to him became clear,
Ritchie told Fox News host Megyn Kelly, “Please tell worked as a monitor tech on tour with him in 2018, he realized it was risky to be so publicly supportive of
the people who are protesting to kiss my ass.” and was alarmed by what he saw. “He started throw- him. “When I doubled down on it, I knew that could
Looking back on it now, he’s resolute: “I wasn’t ing Trump up on the giant screen, like, ‘This is your be a career ender,” he says. “But I was betting that
going to bow down and fucking apologize again. I’d president now, so deal with it!’ ” he says. “I was hor- there were a lot of like-minded people out there.”
already been through this fucking shit.” rified. It’s a hate machine. It’s all these white people, The bet paid off. Whatever he does now, he says,
According to Love, Ritchie’s political coming out and it’s like, ‘What hasn’t this country given to these “half the country says, ‘Fuck yeah!’ ”
put the Confederate-flag controversy in a different people?’ Especially Bob Ritchie. What hasn’t this Ritchie seems flattered that Trump has returned
context. “It wasn’t until he started tripping with country given him? What are you so angry about?” his affections. He rarely misses an opportunity to
Trump that it started looking bad,” says Love, who Two days after meeting with Ritchie at his house, mention hanging out or golfing with the former pres-
still considers Ritchie a friend. “The Trump situa- I’ll see this dynamic in person at a huge fairground in ident, and is quick to rise to his defense. When I bring
tion changed the whole vibe. People say he’s preju- Gonzales, Louisiana, at the first installment of Rock up Trump’s divisive rhetoric about [Cont. on 80]

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Music
CHARLI XCX
DANCES ON
THE EDGE
Avant-pop
rebel delivers a
confessional LP
that never loses
its energy
By BR ITTAN Y SPANOS
Charli XCX
Brat
ATLANTIC
W
HO DOESN’T
wanna dance
with Charli XCX?
The U.K. star has been pop’s
party girl since her debut,
writing high-octane hits for
other artists, like Icona Pop’s
“I Love It” and Iggy Azalea’s
“Fancy,” while saving her
most extreme and wildest
avant-garde impulses for
her own excellent LPs, most
recently 2022’s Crash. On her
sixth album, Brat, she stays
out later and goes harder
than ever before. And while
she’s spinning around on
the dance floor she’s also
spiraling out in her head,
digging deep into the types
of insecurities and fears
reserved for the comedown
the morning after.
Brat seesaws between ex-
tremes from song to song, a
hyperpop roller coaster
ILLUSTRATION BY
Goñi Montes
HELP THEM TASTE ALL
THAT LIFE HAS TO OFFER.
C HAR LI XCX
of post-Saturn return, early-thirties anxieties, and
It-girl bravado. The album opens with the one-two
punch of “360” and “Club Classics,” a pair of boun-
cy ragers that have Charli name-dropping famous
friends Gabbriette, Julia Fox, Hudson Mohawke,
boyfriend George Daniel, and Brat co-executive
producer A. G. Cook. They’re a throwback to classic
club hits, the kind that don’t do more than tell you
to free your mind and keep dancing.
By the time we hit “Sympathy Is a Knife,” it’s
pretty clear that Charli has only taken half of that
advice. It’s the first of several tracks that see her bar-
ing some of her most conflicted emotions over beats
that never lose their energy. “Sympathy” relays her
paranoia, the voice in her head telling her she’s not
enough. And even though she needs sympathy, it
feels all the more painful when she gets what she
wants. Later, on “Rewind,” she lists all of the aspects
of herself she feels shame about: her face, her
weight, her fame, her chart success. On “So I,” Char-
li is overwhelmed with regret as she thinks about
her friend and collaborator Sophie, who passed
away in 2021. The singer opens up about how she
wished she had pulled the late artist closer, instead
of being intimidated by Sophie’s talent and harsh
but loving critiques when the pair worked together.
“Girl, So Confusing” details a different type of
relationship, as Charli unpacks a complicated fren-
emy dynamic with another female pop star. “You’re
Give your dog a bowl full of all about writing poems/But I’m about throwing
real ingredients and real flavor parties,” she explains. Though she celebrates “Mean
Girls” later on the album, this track offers an olive
with every recipe.
branch in spite of how little she and her mystery
peer seem to share.
The album closes out with two of its best tracks.
“I Think About It All the Time” is a gorgeous
confessional about the future and motherhood,
leaving existential questions about when it will be
the right time for her to pursue that part of her life
up in the air. Once she realizes she doesn’t have
all the answers, we go right into “365,” the most
euphoric club offering on an album brimming with
euphoric club offerings; “Shall we do a little key?/
Shall we have a little line?” she asks, as if the whole
album was just one lengthy, drunk bathroom-queue
HARLEY WEIR
Purina trademarks are owned by Société des Produits Nestlé S.A. conversation with Charli all along. And who better
to have that type of soul-baring conversation in the
middle of the night with?

AROOJ AFTAB DREAMS BIG
A visionary Pakistani artist keeps many musical
traditions moving forward By BR ENNA EHR LICH HEALTHFUL.
L
ISTENING TO PAKISTANI
musician Arooj Aftab sing
can feel a little like those
ality in a fucked-up world on the
doomy “Bola Na,” and Cautious
Clay (flute), Kaki King (guitar),
FLAVORFUL.
BENEFUL. ®
first few drifting moments after and Elvis Costello (Wurlitzer) re-
you pop a bedtime melatonin. vamp a Rumi-inspired track from
The edges of the world bleed Vulture Prince into the gorgeously
like watercolors, and your mind hectic “Last Night Reprise.”
weaves new tales from the Aftab also goes to the well
frayed memories of your day. of tradition more than once on
That makes sense, given that this record — turning the jazz
Aftab herself calls nighttime her standard “Autumn Leaves” into
“biggest source of inspiration.” an almost foreboding nocturnal
A vocalist, composer, and pro-
Arooj Aftab landscape, or shaping the words
ducer who has taken influence Night Reign of 18th-century Urdu musician
from artists as diverse as Billie VERVE and poet Mah Laqa Bai into a
Holiday, Abida Parveen, and Jeff crystalline yet triumphant track
that sounds like falling asleep
next to your lover on “Na Gul.”
This thread of poetic love is sewn
in throughout the LP — sliding
in like silk on album opener
“Aey Nehin,” floating like an
intoxicating perfume on “Raat Ki
Rani,” and curling up like a cat
on the lush “Zameen,” featur-
ing multi-instrumentalist Marc
Anthony Thompson.
“Whiskey,” though — one of
the only English-language tracks
— feels the most personal, like a
dream that’s more easily evoked
than described. Mingling strings
and the hushed sounds of tides
coming to shore, the track sees
Aftab giving in to infatuation, as
her lover drunkenly drowses on
Buckley, the 39-year-old Aftab Shahzad Ismaily for the beautiful- her shoulder, and she discovers
FROM TOP: SHREYA DEV DUBE; FARIS BIENEMY
has spent her career dreamily ly experimental Love in Exile, one that she’s “ready to give in to
eliding the boundaries between of 2023’s best albums. your beauty and let you fall in
jazz, pop, and classical music. A Aftab’s new LP, Night Reign, love with me.” It’s a singular
track on her 2021 album, Vulture finds her getting even more moment of individual bliss, but
Prince, won a Grammy for Best range-y than usual. Iyer returns anyone in the throes of new love
Global Music Performance, a to layer delicate, almost Disney- will relate. Such is the power of
distinction that limits the scope eque keys into the cool-water flow Aftab’s one-of-a-kind sonic vision.
of what she does. Last year, she of “Saaqi.” Poet and experimental She has worlds in her voice, as
collaborated with pianist Vijay musician Moor Mother spits bars intimate and expansive as her
Iyer and multi-instrumentalist about the tenuous nature of re- own imagination.
Choose from a variety of
recipes at beneful.com
BREAKING
Anycia Is the Girl Boss We Need

TWENTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD Atlanta rapper Anycia has risen rapidly thanks to the vi-
brant personality and entrancing baritone many first heard during her 2023 From
the Block performance of “BRB.” She follows through on her debut album, Prin-
cess Pop That, the kind of smooth listen that fits into a playlist of hustler braggado-
cio, except it’s a woman on her boss shit. “I hope you get up out the car, and then
your phone crack,” she raps on “Nene’s Prayer.” The album further entrenches her as
one of the “rap girlies” who make music for the turn-up as well as chill vibes. ANDRE GEE

methamphetamine use.) The day she was booked Attorneys representing the county deny the claims
A L A B A M A’ S W A R O N W O M E N into jail, she reported she was raped there and filed made in Caswell’s lawsuit. Randy McNeill, a law-
a formal grievance with the detention center. Her yer for the Etowah County sheriff and corrections
[Cont. from 35] months after the officer learned she lawyer says that she never received any response at officers named in the suit, tells ROLLING STONE,
was pregnant. all from the jail. (Caswell was taken to the hospital, “There is a significant difference between allegations
Another was arrested six days after giving birth, where, according to a lawsuit she later filed against in a complaint and the facts. We are looking forward
separated from her newborn and toddler for two the county, her medical records showed she had sus- [to] showing the facts and hope that it even gets a
months after she tested positive at the hospital for a tained bruising on her vagina and inner thighs. In small portion of the publicity that the amended com-
legal prescription medication. their response to the lawsuit, lawyers for Etowah plaint has generated.” Asked if he could share any de-
Another used a store-bought CBD oil during preg- County denied the allegations.) tails about his clients’ version of the events, McNeill
nancy. When a drug test administered at the hospital Even as Southern jails go, Etowah County ranks said, “I would actually love to, but I am constrained
turned up traces of THC, she was separated from her among the most inhumane. There are no in-person by Bar rules.”
newborn for two months, pretrial. visits allowed, and the only source of fresh air comes Caswell spent two days in the hospital with her
Another was arrested when her young daughter through small, barred windows near the ceiling of a baby. Then she was discharged, and sent back to
told a social worker that her mother was pregnant concrete rec room known as “the sweat box.” jail. Her son was placed in foster care. The irony of
and using drugs. That woman was held for 36 hours Investigations from watchdogs have long raised Etowah County’s policy is that the forced separa-
before she was allowed to take a test proving she was alarms about deficient medical care and inedible food tion of a mother and her baby has been shown to
not pregnant after all. She was released immediately at the jail. In 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center have a significant negative impact on the child. Ev-
— testing positive for a substance is not a criminal of- found detainees at Etowah “failed to receive medi- idence indicates that separating a mother and child
fense if the person is not pregnant or on parole. (She cation because facility staff delayed, refused, or for- at birth or early in life can have profound, lifelong ef-
recently reached a settlement with the Etowah Coun- got to distribute it”; the Women’s Refugee Commis- fects on brain chemistry, increasing the likelihood
ty Sheriff’s Department over her unlawful detention.) sion wrote in 2012 that “in no other detention facility of post-traumatic stress, anxiety, mood, psychotic,
These women’s names, the unlitigated accusations have we received so many complaints of inadequate, and substance-use disorders. When it comes to ex-
against them, and their photographs are frequent- inedible, and insufficient food.” In 2022, U.S. Immi- posure to controlled substances, “generally speaking,
ly published in press releases by the Etowah Coun- gration and Customs Enforcement ended a 28-year we grossly overstate the consequences of an in-ute-
ty Sheriff ’s Department and reprinted, uncritically, contract with the facility after identifying “serious ro chemical exposure, and greatly minimize the role
by local news outlets without comment from the ac- deficiencies” at the jail. of the caregiving environment,” says Dr. Mishka Ter-
cused or their lawyers. By the time Caswell was released after her first plan, an OB-GYN and addiction-medicine specialist.
The arrests have become so common in Etowah stint in Etowah, her mother, Denise, says she was For methamphetamine, like Caswell has been ac-
County there’s a slang term for them: It’s called being a different person: “Closed off, not wanting to open cused of using, Terplan says studies show the differ-
“hit with a chemical.” Almost all of these cases are up to people, not trusting. I was told by a pastor that ences between children who were exposed to am-
handled by the same investigator, Brandi Fuller. Fuller he felt that she didn’t even know what love was any- phetamine in utero, and those who weren’t “lessen
works in a small, windowless office under the deten- more.” Caswell wanted to move away from the county to the point of more or less being undetectable” as
tion center. She has long, silvery hair crimped with after she was let out that first time, but, Denise says, it the child ages. “There might be some differences in
gel. When I show up at her office in March, she tells was a condition of her release that she remain there. some measurements of development in infancy, and
me she wishes she could share her perspective, but “She didn’t need to be there,” Denise says. Nowhere very early childhood, but the magnitude of those
she’s not supposed to speak with the media. Before I in the country pursues these arrests as aggressively tend to almost all go away” within about seven years.
leave, though, she tells me that she was assigned her as Etowah County; if Caswell had been able to leave, MRI imaging does continue to show a difference in
role by the former sheriff, who decided that all chem- she might not have been re-arrested, for the same the brain after this point, Terplan says, but those re-
ical-endangerment arrests should be executed by the charge, during a different pregnancy, two years later. sults are “of uncertain clinical significance.”
same officer. She says she didn’t want to be the only Caswell was being held in Etowah in October 2021 Pregnancy Justice is currently suing Etowah Coun-
person in charge of these types of arrests — “Who the when her water broke, seven months after her arrest. ty, alleging that its treatment of Caswell violated her
hell wants to put a pregnant woman in jail?” — but it’s According to the complaint filed by her lawyers, she rights under the 14th Amendment — the same amend-
her job. And, she adds, “it’s the law, period.” spent 12 hours laboring unmedicated, vomiting from ment under which fetal-personhood advocates want
Two years ago, Pregnancy Justice helped force a the pain, wailing so loud another inmate yelled at embryo rights recognized.
policy change that has resulted in fewer pregnant guards to “do something,” before she was given a sin- In its complaint, the organization’s lawyers cite the
and postpartum women being held indefinitely in gle Tylenol. Her lawyers say Caswell alerted at least accounts of other pregnant women who experienced
Etowah County jail. They no longer have to put up five jail staffers that she was in labor, begging to be similar treatment at the jail: There’s A.S., a terrified
$10,000 cash and agree to enter a drug-treatment taken to the hospital. Instead, she says, she was told first-time mom who was told guards “didn’t have
program to be released on bond, but they continue to “stop screaming” and “deal with the pain.” time” to check on her when she went into labor.
to be arrested on these charges, lawyers say. Caswell was bleeding profusely by the time she It was her fellow inmates, including Caswell, who
Virtually none of the women arrested in Etowah was finally escorted to the prison shower, where, timed her contractions and coached her through
County end up taking their cases to trial, regard- she later told her lawyers, it felt like her body “was labor from adjoining cells. And K.W., whose water
less of the facts. The stakes, for the mothers, are ripping apart.” She was standing alone in the show- broke shortly after her arrest, about four months
just too high. In most cases, a maximum of 10 years er when her son’s head started to emerge. Dizzy and into her pregnancy. Five days elapsed before she
— the first 10 years of her child’s life — if she loses. concerned that she might faint from blood loss, she was taken to the hospital. Her pregnancy ultimately
(The sentences can be higher, depending on the de- called for the corrections officer to catch her baby, ended in a stillbirth, and the loss of so much blood
tails of the case, including whether it is a repeat of- then everything went black. she required a transfusion. Her doctors later told her
fense.) Instead of risking it, most accept a plea deal. A According to her lawsuit, when Caswell came to, the baby would have survived if she’d been trans-
deal doesn’t guarantee a woman will stay out of jail, she was lying, naked and bleeding, on the concrete ported to the hospital when she first alerted prison
though. Some struggle to satisfy the conditions of the shower floor, with a strange tugging sensation in her guards to her condition. (In their response, lawyers
agreement: They might miss a class, or a meeting, or lower abdomen. She looked up to see corrections for the county say their clients “are without sufficient
a drug test because of child-care issues or transporta- officers — suddenly there were five crowded into the belief or knowledge to admit or deny” these claims.)
tion complications, which can send them back to jail. shower — posing for a photo with her newborn son, Today, Caswell is incarcerated at Julia Tutwiler
Numerous women without addictions were arrest- still connected to her by the umbilical cord. Prison in Wetumpka, Alabama, where she is serving
ed because of this initiative, and for some who have When Caswell and her baby were finally taken to a sentence of 15 years for chemical endangerment,
struggled with substance-use issues, instead of help- Gadsden Regional hospital later that night, a doctor concurrently with another sentence, second-degree
ing with recovery, the policy landed them in jail over noted that the gurney she was wheeled in on was assault, for shoving an Etowah County prison guard.
and over again. soaked with blood “from her shoulders to her feet.” Her son will turn three in October. In December,
The first time Ashley Caswell was arrested for She was diagnosed with a placental abruption, a po- 2034 — her release date, according to the Alabama
chemical endangerment was in 2019, when she was tentially fatal condition that occurs when the placen- Department of Corrections, if she serves her entire
two-months pregnant. (Caswell has been accused of ta rips apart from the uterus. sentence — he will be in the eighth grade.

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had butted heads years earlier over their work in the clients to North Carolina so they could have abor-
DOULA nonprofit space. tions that the state of Georgia restricted.
“I was like, ‘Oh, Ash hates me, there’s no way Ash
T
[Cont. from 40] of the first Africans who came to is going to help me,’ but Ash didn’t bring up any of HE FIGHT FOR abortion care and access is on-
the Americas — many of them enslaved. Black mid- the past stuff. He was like, ‘Hey, India, if it’s cool, going, seemingly exhausting, and yet, Wil-
wives and doulas were a source of spiritual, emotion- could I fundraise for you?’ ” Williams started the re- liams says, “I have a lot of hope.”
al, and physical support, and they were respected quest on his socials in the morning — Ríos-Jimenez, Last year, researchers found that Americans had
across racial lines in their communities. Williams’ who was splitting the $400 fee with her sexual part- more than a million abortions in the U.S., a 10 per-
own great-grandmother, Polly, was said to be a “baby ner, was only looking for $200 — by that afternoon, cent increase since 2020, when there was increasing
catcher.” Ash raised the full $400. “I was crying,” Ríos-Jimenez talk about the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
“The deeper you get into birth work, the deeper says. “It was such a relief.” In addition to the money, “People are still calling me, asking where to get
you see the undercurrents. Birth workers have never Williams also sent a care package filled with herbal help to have an abortion, and that’s the source of my
pretended like abortion is not a part of the work we teas, the herb black cohosh, a heating pad, and palo hope: abortion seekers,” he says. “As long as there’s
do,” says whitney williams-Black, a full-spectrum santo to clear the air. people calling me and telling me they need an abor-
doula — a person trained to support every form of Williams also hosts abortion-doula trainings tion and they need help, I’m going to do whatever
pregnancy, from abortions to postpartum — as well as throughout the country and virtually via Zoom. And I can.”
a student-nurse midwife and organizer of the Doula The latest hurdle Williams and his clients are antic-
WorkStudy Project. “In the Deep South, people knew ipating is a Supreme Court decision that could limit
that a Black midwife could help bring a baby in, but access to mifepristone, a drug that can end a preg-
she could also get the baby out.”
Williams’ own experience at the intersection of
“As long as there’s people nancy when taken in combination with misoprostol.
Though studies have shown mifepristone, which has
Blackness, transness, and disability — navigating au- calling me and telling me been used for decades, is safe, conservatives filed a
tism, PTSD, and mobility issues (he uses a cane)
— while also having been pregnant puts him in a
they need an abortion lawsuit alleging that it’s dangerous. “These kinds of
moves impact disabled people in a negative way,”
unique position to understand the hurdles that can and they need help, I’m Williams says. “If people are not paying attention to
arise while trying to get a simple medical procedure. going to do whatever I it, because they are not paying attention to disabled
In his six years in the field, he says, some of the re- people anyway, then that will continue to be another
productive organizations he’s worked for have re- can,” says abortion doula gap in care for reproductive health.”
fused to acknowledge and respect identities outside Ash Williams. On the Friday Williams and I first speak, it’s been
of what’s considered traditional womanhood. a week since I’ve undergone my own abortion. “Con-
“I’ve been told this is not about trans people,” Wil- gratulations,” he says, genuinely. It throws me off,
liams says. “As with many Black and trans people, I but in a good way. He’s the first person to celebrate
know that there are structural and systemic barri- he has run seminars on gender justice since receiving my process, and it feels affirming. “There’s not just
ers to getting the jobs I want and am qualified to do.” an invitation from the abortion clinic where he had sadness and grief, but there’s also so much relief and
Williams instead does much of his work inde- his second abortion, in 2018, to do a training for staff. celebration,” says Williams, who had an abortion
pendently, connecting with people who need his “I saw Ash was doing an abortion-doula training shower years after his own procedures. “I believe
services through his network and word of mouth. on Twitter, and I reached out,” says Nandi, an abor- every person deserves to have the kind of abortion
In March 2022, a few months before the over- tion doula in Georgia who attended one of Williams’ that they want to have, the kind of pregnancy that
turning of Roe v. Wade, India Ríos-Jimenez learned sessions. (Nandi asked ROLLING STONE to use only they want to have.
that she was pregnant and didn’t know where to her first name in this story.) “It was a space for only “People are afraid to talk about abortion,” he
turn for help. “Living in Georgia, they were talking Black folks. With Ash being trans and having a differ- continues. “We have this idea that if we are talking
about overturning,” she tells me. “I talked on Insta- ent perspective on how to support folks who are not about birth, then we are not talking about abor-
gram about it, and someone said, ‘I know an abor- cisgender, that was really helpful for my practice.” tion, like abortion is some other type of issue. Both
tion doula.’ ” Nandi, who has two children and has had three birth and abortion have been medicalized and
That doula turned out to be Williams — with abortions (two before the Dobbs decision and one institutionalized and taken out of the hands of the
whom Ríos-Jimenez had a rocky history. The pair after), is a full-spectrum doula who’s accompanied community.”
estimate for the ballot measure before being forced state constitution — making it nearly impossible to
REBRANDING PRO-LIFE by the state Supreme Court to let it move forward. repeal.
In Arizona, Republicans took a different tack. All of these efforts — the fake ballot measures, text
[Cont. from 41] ted to working with anti-abortion After an 1864 ban was allowed to stand by the trickery, and the war on language — are being pushed
groups to craft a biased ballot summary. That means state Supreme Court, sparking a national backlash, precisely because Republicans know that Americans
when voters went to the ballot box to decide on Republicans decided to propose a ballot measure support abortion rights. They know they can’t win
a pro-choice amendment, they didn’t actually see of their own in order to trick angry voters. A leaked on their own arguments and merits, so they try to lie
the amendment as it was being proposed — but an GOP strategy document laid out the party’s plan and fool voters. As we speed toward the election this
anti-abortion interpretation of the measure. (Vot- to introduce a ballot measure that sounded pro- November, we’ll see the same kinds of tactics from
ers were so eager to restore abortion rights that the choice in order to siphon votes away from the real the Republicans running — including Trump, who is
amendment won regardless.) abortion-rights amendment in the state. They even desperate to escape voters’ post-Roe fury.
In Kansas, anti-choice groups sent out text messag- floated using names like the “Arizona Abortion Pro- But as dystopian as the attacks on democracy are,
es to voters to “Vote YES to protect women’s health,” tection Act” and the “Arizona Abortion and Repro- there is also good news. The anti-abortion future Re-
even though a “yes” vote would have removed abor- ductive Care Act.” publicans want for this country is a vision shared by
tion protections. As pro-choice activists collected Anti-abortion groups in Nebraska did much the only a handful of powerful extremists. The vast ma-
signatures to get abortion on the ballot in Missou- same thing earlier this year: After the pro-choice jority of us want people’s health protected, women’s
ri, anti-abortion groups warned voters via text mes- group Protect Our Rights launched a ballot initiative, humanity and dignity intact, and personal health de-
sages that “out-of-state strangers” would try to steal conservatives proposed a similar-sounding amend- cisions to stay personal.
their personal information by asking them to sign pe- ment that they called Protect Women and Children. We quite literally have the power of the people
titions. Missourians got texts instructing them to “pro- They claimed the measure would protect abortion in on our side. We just have to be ready for a long-haul
tect yourself from fraud & theft” by not signing any the first trimester of a pregnancy. What they failed battle that doesn’t stop with one state or one win.
petitions. This move came after the state’s attorney to mention is that Nebraska recently enacted a 12- And we have to point out, again and again, that what
general held up abortion-rights advocates signature- week ban; that means passing their “pro-choice” the GOP is doing with abortion rights is being done
gathering for months by refusing to sign off on a cost amendment would actually enshrine a ban into the against our wills.

with her eyes closed, throwing her head back, star-
CARDI B bursting her fingers. It’s one of her pop-radio songs,
she says, sugary with high-femme twinkles and
[Cont. from 48] she’s leaning more on her parents, chimes and keys that are distorted like a fun-house
but she’s wary of overextending them. “I had them mirror. Cardi rounds out the preview with a sexy
kids,” she says. “They came out of my pussy, not my drill production from her regular collaborator Swan-
mom’s. They mine.” Offset is around and helping out, Qo, who produced “Like What (Freestyle),” “Up,”
having just finished his own tour, but Cardi still feels and more. It’s called “Don’t Do Too Much,” and it’s
stretched thin. “My kids come first. My kids come be- glittery and animated, with a playful whistle as its
fore anything,” she says, having reframed her priori- through line. Cardi says she gets some jokes off on
ties since our last meeting. it. “If it was up to me,” she says, “my whole album Dr. Winnifred Cutler
She is particularly frustrated that some of her fans would sound like drill.”
expect her to churn out social media content in the In fact, there are a few left-field approaches she’s
midst of all this — never mind that, in recent days, she ruminated on. “You see how Beyoncé is doing a
did lengthy live sessions on Instagram and TikTok. country-album type shit and it’s just she’s doing what
Both were casual, with Cardi at home (snacking on she likes?” she asks me. “If it was up to me, I would
Dr. Winnifred Cutler
junk food in her mom’s house for the former). “Not do songs like ‘Erotica’ because that’s what I like. I like tm
only [are] just your fans telling you that,” she contin- Madonna’s Erotica, ‘Justify My Love.’ If I was on that
ues, “you got to deal with what I’m dealing with now level that Beyoncé’s at, I would do songs like that.”
— motherhood — that nobody could solve for me. No
assistant could solve for me. No husband could solve
But for now, Cardi thinks she still needs to do her due
diligence in hip-hop more traditionally first.
INCREASE AFFECTION
for me. No label could solve for me. Nobody could Cardi is ruthless with producers; most beats tend These cosmetics increase your attractive-
ness. Created by the co-discoverer of human
solve what’s going on in my home, and what’s going to bore her. “It’s like, ‘Just come ready,’ ” she says. pheromones. Dr. Cutler has authored 8 books
on in my home is we have a shortage of my kids being “Because I’m a really quick person. I give you a de- on wellness and 50 scientific papers.
taken care of. I got to solve it.” scription, what I want to hear, what I like, how I
Cardi gets two calls that offer a glimpse of how sound, what I’ve been listening to lately. Y’all come,
she’s coping. “Hubington, FaceTime Video,” her y’all play me y’all shit. If I don’t like it, it’s like, ‘Sorry,
iPhone announces at one point. I catch Offset on the next time.’ ”
screen, looking a bit like a dental patient. “You got One who’s really impressed her is fellow Bronxite
that gold tooth?” she asks him. “You got it done! It Cash Cobain, whose star as both a producer and rap-
don’t look country! Looks good.” per has been rising in the horny, laid-back, sexy drill
“You like it?” asks Offset. movement. Both rappers have a penchant for “[say-
ATHENA PHEROMONE tm
“I love it.” ing] things that shouldn’t be said, for real,” he tells me
They chat breezily with each other for just a cou- later. In L.A., in March, Cash played Cardi about 30
ple of minutes before ending the call. “It seems like tracks, many of which she loved. “I was like, ‘Damn, for women tm for men
you and Offset are doing good?” I pose. now I got to make a lot of choices because I don’t unscented fragrance additives
“We’re all right now,” Cardi says. With a giggle, she want my whole album to sound like this,’ ” Cardi says.
♥ Jeff (PA) “I have to tell you. I had great
waves off my inquiry about Offset updates. Cash said he could see Cardi’s work ethic before
success with your product. I was able to
The other call, Siri announces, is from an unsaved he ever met her, way back when he was 19, hear-
attract and have a wonderful relationship
Los Angeles number. “My therapist,” Cardi says. Car- ing her blasting from the city’s hip-hop stations, Hot with a beautiful woman who otherwise would
di’s tried to let her rage or sadness motivate her in 97 and Power 105. “All this rapping shit, staying in have been outside my league.”
the booth, she tells me, but her voice just ends up the right pocket, the voice, and everything being so
♥ Florence (AL) 54 orders “I am 57 and
cracking and she can’t hit the melodies. “So I just got perfect — that’s hard work,” he says. “And her prod- have just gotten married. I think the
a therapist, and I really like her.” uct is amazing. It’s not just something that she’s just pheromones just made a difference. That
The counselor is just calling to check on her. Cardi throwing out.” positive attitude. I want to thank you for your
relays that she needed a hand with the kids, but In the seven years since “Bodak Yellow,” a new books…especially the hormones book!”
that she’s good. She and the therapist are just get- crop of artists from New York — from all over — have
ting started; back in L.A. she’d told me she wasn’t come of age with Cardi as a North Star. “I know for tm
in therapy, having found it hard to focus during the a fact I’m a staple,” she says finally, after having fret-
sessions. “It was just too much going on,” Cardi says
when I ask about her change of heart. “And when
ted about making a statement, cementing her place,
and besting herself with her next album. “I know for
INCREASE ATTRACTIVENESS
there’s too much going on, it fucks up my work.” a fact that I [opened] a fucking door. I know for a fact athe n a i n st i t u t e. c o m
that I [can] rap. I know for a fact I make fucking hits. Vial of 1/6 oz. added to 2-4 oz. of your
T
HE TENSION CARDI brought with her to Jungle Sometimes people be trying to belittle me, and it’s fragrance lasts 4 to 6 mos., or use straight
Contains human synthesized pheromones.
City melts away as she and Brunson play some like, ‘No, I’m that bitch and y’all fucking know it.’”
Works for most, but not all. NOT SOLD IN STORES.
favorite beats from the album. She’s recorded She pulls out her phone and beckons me near. “I 2+ vials ship free to US Cosmetics; not aphrodisiacs.
lyrics to them, but she’s not ready to share those just want you to see this,” she says. “This is not even about
yet; the track list and song titles are not final either. bragging.” She opens a text conversation with a man- Call: 610-827-2200
“Better Than You” reminds me of UGK and OutKast’s ager, pulling up a graphic detailing a performance or send to Athena Institute,
Dept RS, 1211 Brafield Rd.
“Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You),” with a pitched- offer that looked to be for $1.5 million. “That’s for Chester Springs, PA 19425
up vocal sample, rich, violin-like synths, and rolling one show,” says Cardi. In the text chain, the manag-
Southern drums. Cardi notes that its sound — courte- er mentions that he thinks he can get it to $2 million. SAVE $100: 6-Pak special
sy of the producer Vinylz, whom she’s known since She seems to think back to the TikTok that made Please send me__vials of 10:13 for women@$98.50
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“I feel like the beat is not a beat you could get “I would put out music every month because nothing
❑ Visa,M/C,Disc._______-________-________-_______
rowdy on,” she says. “It’s a real calm beat. And I pays me more than shows. I’m turning down these
Exp._____ CVV:____ Sign: __________________
had two choices, I could do more of an inspiration- concerts because I don’t got no new music.” to: Name______________________________
al type of record — ‘I used to grind all my life’ — but She’s confident that if she wanted to, she could Address_______________________________
then I decided to be like, ‘No, I’m going to shit on milk her star power to no end. “But I care about how City/State_________________zip__________
you bitches.’ ” my music sound,” she says. “I care about my quali- Tel:______________ email___________________
When they play another beat, this one for a song ty. I care about giving something special every sin- *PA add 6% tax, Outside US shipping see website RS
called “Pick It Up,” Cardi’s face brightens. She hums gle time.”

ME: Those are two different things. cares because the shouting, the name-calling, and
KID ROCK RITCHIE: No, it’s not! It only takes a few of them! the attention-grabbing bullshit are who he is now.
Why can’t we just have a system where we’re going It’s as if the blurry line between Kid Rock and Bob
[Cont. from 71] immigrants, about Democrats, about to vet you first— Ritchie has disappeared entirely.
nearly anyone who crosses him, Ritchie embraces this ME: We have one! One theory several people I interviewed offered
aspect of his character as a feature, not a bug. RITCHIE: … then we’re going to welcome you and is that Ritchie’s right-wing awakening is as much
“You think I like Trump because he’s a nice guy?” help you out! I have no problem spending my tax dol- about managing the emotional fallout of a waning
he says. “I’m not electing the deacon of a church. lars on that. career as it is about any deep-seated beliefs. He’s al-
That motherfucker likes to win. He likes to cheat in ME: When Trump gets up and talks about immi- ways longed for the spotlight, and now, as a 53-year-
his fucking golf game. I want that guy on my team. I grants as rapists and animals, that creates an envi- old more than a decade removed from his last big
want the guy who goes, ‘I’m going to fight with you.’ ” ronment where the guy who came across the border hit, he’s doing whatever he can to keep it on him.
Ultimately, his attachment to Trump feels more running from violence or trying to support his fam- Although he remains a big live draw, when you’re
personal than ideological. Sure, he will parrot Fox ily is now treated like shit. accustomed to the endorphin hit that comes with
News talking points about immigration, foreign pol- RITCHIE: So, with that thinking, you’d say gang- being at the white-hot center of pop culture, you
icy, or the economy, but what he seems most drawn sta rap is contributing to all these young Black men may find playing a casino in Sacramento or the fair-
to in Trump as a rich, famous, attention-hungry loud- shooting each other and going to jail. grounds in Gonzales doesn’t provide the same rush.
mouth whose cartoonish persona was once univer- ME: How are those things equivalent? That’s not to say Kid Rock’s politics don’t reflect Bob
sally celebrated but is now toxic to half the populace Ritchie’s beliefs, but yelling them so loudly feels per-
is a reflection that looks a lot like his own. To be fair, Ritchie could just as quickly downshift, formative. The real question is whether he’s satis-
Several people I interviewed believe that as a business- turn on the charm, and dish up self-deprecating sto- fied doing that.
minded, country-music-loving, stuck-in-his-ways con- ries or offer me earnest advice about my finances or At one point in the evening, the MAGA veil falls for
servative, Ritchie has essentially become what he my girlfriend. But once we’re sitting in the lounge, all a moment, and he seems to lament becoming such a
once despised: his father. “I just don’t think the apple he wants to do is squabble. reviled figure among so many music fans. “No one’s
ever falls far from the tree,” says Clark. By this time, I’ve long since quit drinking, but ever going to say, ‘Fuck Prince,’ ” he tells me. “As
Ritchie doesn’t really disagree. “Man, the stereo- Ritchie has exchanged his white wine for Jim Beam soon as he goes” — and here, Ritchie breaks into song
types are true. I turn into more of him every day.” and Diet Coke. He proceeds to drain at least three or — “ ‘I never meant to cause you any sorrow,’ you’re
four of them in pretty quick succession. He’s sitting like, ‘Ahh!’ ”
T
HE MUSIC RITCHIE tells me he’s been work- in a dark leather chair, shouting at me about some- “Yeah, but Prince wasn’t out talking shit about ev-
ing on lately isn’t political at all. He wants thing or other, when he reaches behind the seat, eryone, spouting political opinions.”
me to hear some, so after the Fox News hit, pulls out a black handgun, and waves it around to “I don’t care. ‘Purple Rain’ is probably the greatest
we climb into an ATV and he drives us down a steep make some sort of point. Prince song ever written. Prince is known for ‘Purple
hill, through the woods, about a half-mile to the large “And I got a fucking goddamn gun right here if I Rain.’ I’m known for shooting up Bud Light cans!”
building that houses his home studio. need it!” he shouts. “I got them everywhere!” “But do you want that? You don’t want that to be
Ritchie can’t find the right cable to connect his This was the tenor of the next hour or so. We start your epitaph.”
phone to the studio’s sound system, so we go to a talking about American history, and he rightfully “I don’t care.”
lounge area where he plays a couple of new country- brings up slavery and the genocide of Native Ameri- “Yeah, but you do.”
tinged rock songs on his phone. This is about the cans as stains on that history. I ask him if he worries “No, I don’t. You don’t understand. I really don’t
point when shit starts going decidedly sideways. that in the modern day he might be on the wrong give a fuck.”
For the first two hours that we talked, Ritchie side of history. “If that was true, you wouldn’t go on Laura Ingra-
seemed eager to argue politics, but I tried not to take “No. It was the Republicans that freed the fuck- ham. You wouldn’t talk to me.”
the bait. Yeah, we got into it about trans rights (“I can ing slaves!” He tells me that’s just business. If he can make
coexist with anyone in a public space. I used to go “Yes, but the Republicans were the progressive “shit tons more money,” he can give it to friends, fam-
to those clubs with them fuckers in New York. They party back then.” ily, his band, and to the MD Anderson Cancer Cen-
were a hoot”) and the 2020 election (“I’m going to “I know where you’re going with this, and I’ll tell ter, which took care of his father when he was sick.
say this on the record: It was stolen … by a bunch of you why I don’t,” Ritchie says. “Because Trick Trick, “But it’s not about money anymore, right?” I ask
fucking jackasses that voted for Joe Biden”), but for the hardest-hitting n----r in Detroit, was like, ‘Dog, him. “You’ve got money.”
the most part, it didn’t seem productive to shout at you had that shit right. We need Trump.’ I’ll call him “Finances make a lot of decisions.”
each other about things we were never going to agree right fucking now.” He dials his phone, but Chris- “I get that, but my whole point is whether you
on. Besides, debating Ritchie is maddening. He skips tian Mathis, the pioneering underground Detroit rap- want to be the guy on Fox News or whether you want
from topic to topic like he’s flipping channels, and per who goes by Trick Trick, doesn’t pick up. Ritchie to be remembered for the music.”
says intentionally outrageous shit in a way that it’s turns back to me. “I’m telling you. These dogs are “Fox News,” he says, deadpan. Then he laughs.
never clear whether he’s joking, serious, just trying calling me like, ‘Yo, n----r, you had that one right!’ ” I shrug, thank him for meeting with me and tell
to irritate you, or maybe all three. And he likes to do (Mathis didn’t respond to subsequent messages ask- him I’ve got to go. I need to be back in Atlanta to-
it all at high volume. This exchange was fairly typical: ing for confirmation of his support for Trump.) night, and have a four-hour drive ahead of me.
It’s worth mentioning these are not the only times “No, you don’t,” he tells me. “You can stay.”
RITCHIE: You can’t stop evil, but you don’t have Ritchie drops the n-word during my visit. It’d be easy “Really, I’ve got to go.”
to let them in so easily either. We want great fucking to label this as the rantings of a drunk racist, but as “You can crash here tonight. I’ve got room for you.”
immigrants, people that want to come here, have a with everything that Ritchie does, it’s hard to know “I appreciate it, but I can’t.”
better life, work. They’re Christians, if you’re talking how calculated it all is. Is he just trying to get a re- “Well, you need me to drive you to the house.”
about Mexico. action? Is he begging to be pilloried when this story This is true. My car is at least a half-mile away, up a
ME: But when Trump says these people are— comes out so he can launch into a very public tirade steep hill, through unfamiliar woods, and by now, it’s
RITCHIE: They are! against “cancel culture”? Is this all just a play for dark outside. “Well, I can walk if I have to, but, yeah,
ME: … not humans. more attention? Would any of that make it less shitty? it would be nice if you could give me a ride back.”
RITCHIE: They’re murderers! They’re rapists! The strange thing is, despite his rhetoric, Ritchie’s “You won’t make it,” Ritchie snarls. “Just watch
They are! MS-13! They just did the girl over here! politics aren’t uniformly regressive. He considers this one YouTube video and then I’ll take you up
They just did the girl in Nashville! himself socially liberal. And the longer we argue, there.” After some fidgeting with the remote, he loads
ME: Those are anecdotal. If you look at crime stats, the more I can see the faint outlines of reasonable a video of himself performing “Born Free” at a 2011
immigrants commit crime at a much lower level than stances on things like immigration, government reg- charity event onto the flatscreen in the lounge. The
citizens. ulation of corporations, and tax policy. But here’s audience at the show includes Jimmy Carter, Bill Clin-
RITCHIE: It only takes 10 of them! the thing: Nobody will ever hear any of that over ton, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush.
ME: What? the shouting, the name-calling, and all of his other “Don’t you miss being that guy?” I ask him.
RITCHIE: 9/11! attention-grabbing bullshit. I don’t think he really “No. I can do that any day of the week.”

“Not anymore. Because you couldn’t be in a room “Detroit and Kid Rock,” I say, pointing at each of “Do you think you could whup the shit out of me?”
with—” them. “Can I go now?” he asks.
“I don’t give a frog’s fat fuck! Look around. I got Ritchie mixes himself another drink and starts I laugh. “Probably not.”
a butler named Uncle Tom. Do I look like I give a picking up the threads of arguments we started hours “You can take a shot if you want.”
fuck?” ago. He calls me a “college snowflake.” He asks how “No, thanks. I’m good.”
When the video ends, I stand up to go, but he much money I made last year, and when I tell him, he As we ride up the dark hill, he’s quiet — well, not
wants to watch another one. And then another one tells me I need a new job. Then he complains about exactly quiet, but quieter. He’s still needling me,
after that. This goes on for more than half an hour his tax dollars supporting “Black women having chil- but his heart’s not in it anymore. We turn out of the
— me telling him I need to leave, him insisting on dren they can’t afford.” woods, in sight of his gargantuan house, and he asks
watching just one more video, all while goading me “Look,” I tell him, “there are people who abuse me what I think of everything he’s built on his prop-
into arguments about Gaza, Trump, whatever. He the system but—” erty. “Do you think it’s cool or excessive?”
pulls an acoustic guitar off the wall and plays along “We call those Black people. Would you agree?” I glance at him, and he suddenly seems strangely
with shaky fan footage of himself performing “Mag- “No.” vulnerable. As much as I find so much about who
gie May.” I start to wonder if I’ll ever get home. Final- “So, you don’t like Black people?” Bob Ritchie has become highly problematic, at that
ly, I pick up my backpack. “I don’t think Black people abuse the system.” moment, I’m worried about hurting his feelings.
“OK, I’m out.” “You hate Black people?” “I think you’ve created your playground,” I tell
Ritchie shakes his head. “You’ll just stay over.” At this point, I don’t know whether he believes any- him. “This is what you wanted.”
“I can’t. I really have to go.” thing he’s saying, or if he just wants to keep me there “So, you like it?”
“All right. This is the last one we’ll watch.” fighting with him. By now, we’re chest to chest and “I like it. It’s fun. If I had $240 million, I don’t
“No, the last one was the last one.” he’s up in my face, but I think I can detect a sly smile know if I would’ve done the same.”
“This one is the final final. That’s what my dad creeping from the corner of his mouth. He’s just bait- “I have $370 million in cash.”
used to say, the final final.” ing me, but I’m surprised at how dedicated he is to “All right. I don’t want to shortchange you.”
“I’ve got to go.” the task. Is he lonely, or just bored? It’s not as if he’s He stops the ATV. I get out and we shake hands.
“You can’t get anywhere without me.” holed up in his giant mansion, Norma Desmond-style. Then he motions for me to come close, as if he has a
“I’ve got legs. I can make it up the hill. I’m leaving.” He’s got people around — among others, his manager, secret he wants to tell me.
I start walking toward the door. his long-term fiancée, Audrey Berry, and, of course, “Would you do me a favor?” he asks, practically
“Sit down.” Uncle Tom — but I get the feeling what he wants isn’t whispering. “Just write the most horrific article about
“No.” companionship but a sparring partner. me. Do it. It helps me.”
“One more and that’s it.” “All right, take me home, man. We’re not getting I walk toward my car, and just before I get to it, he
“You said that 10 fucking minutes ago!” anywhere with this. You just fucking love to argue.” calls out one more time.
“Final final. You haven’t even asked me about my “No.” “Will you tell everyone that I was halfway cool?”
jewelry.” After another five or 10 minutes of this back-and- I tell him he’s all right, we just disagree about lots
He shoves his hands toward me. He’s got heav- forth, he finally seems to lose steam and agrees to of things.
ily jeweled rings on two fingers. One says “D,” the drive me back to my car. As he pours himself one “That’s because you’re gay,” he says cackling, as I
other “KR.” more drink for the road, he looks me up and down. climb into my car and start the long drive home.
LOVE WAYS

Alan Cumming
The Broadway star on fame, sappy
songs, and why name-dropping is OK
You seem like you’re nice. I used to do a thing It sets the scene better. I re-
constantly working. What where someone would come member Jeff Goldblum, he
do you do to relax? up to me, and before they was filming this thing with
Just this weekend, I was up said anything I would try and my friend, and I went to visit
in the Catskills at my house scan them like some sort of them on the set. I had one of
there. I love it. I love seeing spy film. “Well-put-together those Russian hats on. And
my friends and hosting them, woman in her mid-thirties: he goes, “I really like your
and not necessarily being in probably The Good Wife”; or hat.” And I said, “Gosh, you
public. I love going out and “the geeky guy with a beard know who gave me this hat?
having fun and drinking, but and a cutoff shirt: probably Faye Dunaway.” And he said,
it’s also nice to do it in an X-Men.” But it’s hard now be- “You know who told me
environment where you’re cause I’ve been around the never to name-drop? Bobby
block for so long. And then De Niro.”
people say things like, “I love What is the best piece
your soap.” of advice you’ve gotten?
Cumming hosts
‘The Traitors,’ What’s a song that never I suppose the best piece of
streaming now fails to make you ugly-cry? advice was from an old, salty
on Peacock. There’s so many. “To Make sea dog Scottish actor in,
You Feel My Love” — the like, 1985, when I was 20. He
Adele cover of the Bob Dylan played Banquo in Macbeth at
not observed. To take that song. That gets me partly be- the Tron Theatre in Glasgow,
away and have a home that is cause my brother told me and I was Malcolm. I was
big enough for your friends that was the song he played fussing over some line, and
to come over — that’s one of with his ex-wife when they he said, “When in doubt, do
the best things about being were nearly going to split up, it with a look.” Say what you
successful, that you can and then they did. Also “And mean, and do the lines with
make your own space. So It Goes,” by Billy Joel, your face added to that. It’s
What are some of the which I used to sing [in my so simple, but so deadly.
worst things about being cabaret show]. That was real- Is there any role you
successful? ly hard to sing. I have a whole played that you wished you
The lack of anonymity and album called Alan Cumming hadn’t taken?
the huge level of self-con- Sings Sappy Songs, so that’s There’s a couple of things
sciousness. I had to walk out my wheelhouse, as they say. I’ve been kind of elbowed
earlier, and a man going past What do you think draws into. There’s been films that
gasped and said, “You’re fa- you to sappy songs? I thought were gonna be great
mous. Can I shake your Because you can act to them. that turned out to be terrible,
hand?” You have to sort of I can only sing songs that I but I don’t have any regrets
galvanize yourself to open the can act [out]. It’s partly be- about any of it. I like flouting
front door and think, “OK, cause of my sort of inferi- people’s expectations, and I
I’m going out into the world ority complex about sing- think it’s really annoying
now.” People are usually very ing. Liza Minnelli [told] me if when people are like, “Why
nice. I do feel sort of beloved. you’re scared to tell people are you doing that?” I
But it’s just constant. “Come and see me in a con- remember, years ago, I had
What role would you cert,” think of it like the song two press junkets near each
say you get the most is a play, and you’re a charac- other: One was Titus, the
recognized for? ter in a play. Shakespeare film, and one
Spy Kids is a massive one be- In your cabaret, you was The Flintstones in Viva
cause young adults probably joke about name-dropping Rock Vegas. It was all the same
saw that when they were lit- celebrities — and you just journalists. I was like, “Deal
tle. I love that because peo- mentioned Liza. with it, bitches. I’m an actor.
ple come up to me saying Name-dropping is seen as a And also, how much do
I’ve been a magical part of negative thing, like you’re you think Titus
their childhood. It’s really trying to show off. I’m not. paid?” EJ DICKSON
82 | Rolling Stone | June 2024 ILLUSTRATION BY Mark Summers

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JUNE 2024

Forever Ahead Of Its Time

Purina trademarks are owned by Société des Produits Nestlé S.A.

See our commitment to ingredient integrity and responsible sourcing at

Celebrating queer love

66 “I always used to be very shy in

Devil With a Cause

PHOTOGRAPH BY Xavier Scott Marshall

The Mix 18 Why Is Everyone

Sound and Vision Fight to D.C.

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Gus Wenner Jay Penske

Jann S. Wenner FOUNDER

Ralph J. Gleason 1917-1975

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Landing Major Moves With Cardi B

Billie Winter and Tessa Stuart Jessica Valenti

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY Nedda Afsari Rolling Stone | 13

When Wolf was growing up in California,

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WHITE OUT SMILEY

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How Kate Hudson Finally Let

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How Willow Made Her

Angstiest Song Ever

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The Weeknd 2 Tupac vs. Biggie

ELECTION 2024 How do you feel about RFK Jr., who

Jane Fonda Takes the conspiracy theorists in the nation,

Climate Fight to D.C. mine. I really respect what he’s done

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Choose paper and rest easy.

CHOOSE PAPER AND PAPER PACKAGING AND BE A FORCE FOR NATURE

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The Last Ramblin’ Man

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Illustration by ANA JUAN

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kind of stunned for several days,” she says.

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The Abortion-Clinic Defenders

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“I Have a Lot of Hope”

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