Table of contents for April 19, 2018 in Rolling Stone

Wakanda Forever I HAVE TO WONDER HOW many hearts beat faster when readers first saw this cover featuring Chadwick Boseman [“The Black Panther Revolution,” RS 1308]. What an exquisitely beautiful man. Coreen Steinbach Pompey, NY CHADWICK BOSEMAN IS well-learned and studied. I greatly appreciate his contribution to our culture. What he brought to Black Panther has been nothing but transformative to African people around the globe. Taalib Saber Greenbelt, MD WITH “FRUITVALE STATION” and now the massive success of Black Panther, Ryan Coogler is showing everyone why he is one of the best young directors in Hollywood. He has a very bright future ahead of him. Jeff Swanson Everett, WA “BLACK PANTHER” WILL BE the Star Wars for today’s black youth. They’ll want to explore, play and inhabit the world of…

<p class="space"></p> It didn't make the news, but a couple of months back Slim Jxmmi drove his Ferrari into a fence. “It was a beautiful Ferrari,” says his younger brother, Swae Lee. Together they make up the pop-rap duo Rae Sremmurd; they’re in their home studio in the suburbs north of L.A. “I played chicken with traffic,” Jxmmi explains. “I woke up from this party, don’t even know where my shirt was, got in the Ferrari, no shirt on.” A few blocks from his house, he blew a red light, overcooked a turn and crashed. “Drove home with the front dragging on the ground,” he says. Swae shakes his head: “He fucked that motherfucker up.” Jxmmi grins. “It was a rental. I just got my license, so now I’m actually…

QUESTLOVE QUESTLOVE SUPREME FORMAT The drummer dissects songs with heroes like the Revolution and Sheila E. PLATFORM Pandora SCHEDULE Every week WHY HE DOES IT “To satisfy the fan in me,” says Quest. BEST GUEST Ray Parker Jr., who recalled writing the Ghostbusters theme and claimed his old boss Stevie Wonder can drive: “He didn’t care about hitting the cars.” OZZY OSBOURNE THE OSBOURNES PODCAST FORMAT Ozzy, Sharon, Kelly and Jack sit down and reflect on their hit MTV show and go on crude tangents. “I hope people have a laugh,” says Ozzy. PLATFORM Apple/Android SCHEDULE Every week BEST MOMENT They recalled Bill Cosby blasting their show’s language. “Hey, Bill Cosby, how you doin’, motherfucker?” Jack said. Added Sharon, “What a fucking joke!” MIKE WATT THE WATT FROM PEDRO…

Blink-182 The Palms Las Vegas May 26th-November 17th TICKETS $59-$155 For their first Vegas residency, Blink are promising “very special” shows with guests. “I might even sing on-key one of these nights,” says bassist Mark Hoppus. Lady Gaga Park Theater at Park MGM Begins in late 2018 TICKETS TBD Gaga will reportedly get nearly $75 million for 74 gigs. “It’s my lifelong dream to be a Las Vegas girl,” she said. Gwen Stefani Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood DATES AND TICKETS TBD Stefani may soon announce a residency. She said she was “inspired” by J. Lo’s Las Vegas show.…

IN NOVEMBER 2013, THE PRESIdent of the National Rifle Association, David Keene, was introduced as an honored guest at the conference of the Right to Bear Arms, a gun lobby in Moscow. “There are no peoples that are more alike than Americans and Russians,” Keene said. “We’re hunters. We’re shooters. We value the same kinds of things.” Keene underscored his friendship with Alexander Torshin, a top politician in the ruling party of Vladimir Putin; for the past three years, Keene said, “I’ve hosted your senator Alexander Torshin at the National Rifle Association’s annual meetings.” In words that now carry a darker connotation, Keene insisted, “We need to work together.” Torshin, now 64, is a roly-poly politician, perhaps five feet six, with thick glasses and a passion for borscht – “like…

EVERYONE HAS IT BACKWARD. We shouldn’t be asking Facebook to fix the problem. We should be fixing Facebook. It’s our collective misfortune that this perhaps silliest-in-history supercorporation – a tossed-off hookup site turned international cat-video vault turned Orwellian surveillance megavillain – has dragged us all to the very cliff edge of modern technological capitalism. We’ve reached a moment in history where many companies are more powerful than even major industrialized nations, and in some cases have essentially replaced governments as de facto regulators and overseers. But some of those companies suck just a little too badly at the governing part, leaving us staring into a paradox. The Russians call this situation a sobaka na sene, a dog on the hay. Asleep in the manger, the dog itself won’t eat the hay. But…

The Voidz Virtue RCA/Cult Records HHH½ The Strokes frontman’s messy, interesting search for meaning The second album from Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas’ project the Voidz sounds like a dozen different bands, at once catchy and challenging. “Leave It in My Dreams” is a honey pot for Strokes fans; “Pyramid of Bones” lands between Black Sabbath and the White Stripes; “Black Hole” is impenetrably, punkishly wrought; and “All Wordz Are Made Up” suggests an audition for a Kanye collab. It’s all tied together by Casablancas’ quest for meaning in a dark world (“Don’t you ever listen to the white man’s lies,” he advises). He doesn’t have answers, and that’s fine. This is the sound of honest confusion. JOSH MODELL <div class="thin-border"></div> Hop Along Bark Your Head Off, Dog Saddle Creek…

1. Pearl Jam “Can’t Deny Me” Pearl Jam’s first new song in five years is a bare-knuckled anti-Trump anthem. “You know you’re sick,” Eddie Vedder shouts over growling guitars. It’s the kind of arena-size rage not enough bands are going for these days. Welcome back, guys. 2. Amen Dunes “Believe” You can hear some Syd Barrett in the creepy yet captivating music of Amen Dunes (a.k.a. singer-songwriter Damon McMahon). This dark ballad is sweet, scary stuff. 3. Willie Nelson “Me and You” “It’s like I’m in some foreign country,” Nelson sings with resigned warmth over an easygoing shuffle. It’s the sound of hanging out with an eternal buddy helping you through hard times. 4. Illuminati Hotties “Paying Off the Happiness” “I could probably use a fourth job,” these L.A.…

‘IT’S PRETTY UNBELIEVable, really,” says Neil Young. He’s talking about the process of going through his entire archives for the Neil Young Archives, an interactive multimedia timeline. How does it feel to reflect on a half-century of work, from Buffalo Springfield to Rust Never Sleeps to Harvest Moon? “I try not to focus on it too much,” Young says, from his Austin hotel room. “It starts in 1963, and it’s 2018. I try to be mellow on that.” But Young is in no way done creating – as his recent workload proves. Journey Through the Past Young has obsessed over every detail of his archival site, from the high-resolution audio to a blog he constantly updates. Only 25 percent of the music is loaded so far, and Young rattles off…

If you went on ticketmaster in January and pulled up a third-row seat for Taylor Swift’s June 2nd show at Chicago’s Soldier Field, it would have cost you $995. But if you looked up the same seat three months later, the price would have been $595. That’s because for some seats Swift has adopted “dynamic pricing,” where concert tickets – like airline seats – shift prices constantly in adjusting to market demand. It’s a move intended to squeeze out the secondary-ticket market – but it’s also left many fans confused as they’re asked to pay hundreds of dollars more than face value. “Basically, Ticketmaster is operating as StubHub,” says a concert-business source. Swift is not alone. This summer, U2, Kenny Chesney, Pink, the Eagles and Shania Twain will also…

FROM HIS 1974 depiction of Richard Nixon molesting the Statue of Liberty to his 2016 illustration of a maniacal, pitchfork-wielding Donald Trump, artist Robert Grossman was a master at skewering politicians on the cover of ROLLING STONE. Grossman – who died of reported heart failure on March 15th at age 78 – spent more than 40 years creating unforgettable images for the magazine. Recent classics include his 2006 drawing of George W. Bush wearing a dunce cap and his 2012 cover of Mitt Romney as the Monopoly Man (Grossman also lovingly portrayed rock stars such as Bob Dylan as cherubic cartoons). “He was able to cut through sticky political issues and find a brilliant, simple idea that communicated the point very well,” says ROLLING STONE design director Joe Hutchinson. Grossman…

“I rolled a J on the day I got my diploma. I knew Leroy would be proud. I can’t forget … trying to wake him on that sofa. He never did come ’round.”—Ashley McBryde, “Livin’ Next to Leroy” BY WILL HERMES Ashley McBryde Girl Going Nowhere Atlantic/Warner Music Nashville HHHH Amazingly, mainstream country is still about ball-capped bros recycling hits from market-study bullet points, while Nashville’s ambitious women remain the primary engine behind the greatest creative renaissance since Willie and Waylon fucked shit up in the 1970s. Kacey Musgraves ushered in the new era in 2013 with her live-and-let-live hit “Follow Your Arrow”; late last year, newbie Ashley McBryde showed it had legs with the hope-in-hard-times “A Little Dive Bar in Dahlonega.” Each woman has a new record that furthers…

Kali Uchis  Isolation Interscope/Virgin EMI HHHH The music 24-year-old Colombian-American artist Kali Uchis summons on her fascinating debut doesn’t refer to a particular place or time. Like Beck or Outkast, she’s a pop weirdo who works grooves that seem vintage and futuristic at the same moment – grabbing splashes of funk, bossa nova, reggaeton and soul, and blanketing them with a sunbaked, psychedelic wooziness. Her specialty is flashbacks, not throwbacks. Blink and the picture changes again. On Isolation, Thundercat, Damon Albarn, Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, and Kendrick Lamar collaborators Sounwave, Steve Lacy and BadBadNotGood all make contributions, but the vibe is Uchis’ alone. “Tyrant” finds her mulling sexual politics over a slow-motion dancehall beat; “Teeth in My Neck” piles up come-ons atop a roller-skating bounce; “Nuestro Planeta” is a…

Who are your heroes? My dad [doo-wop singer Lee Andrews] taught me everything I know about the music business. But if you’re talking about who I look to and worship in my daily life, the Father is Don Cornelius, the Son is Prince and the Holy Ghost is Michael Jackson. The first thing I do every morning is watch an episode of Soul Train. Why? I don’t know. Because I can. There’s always some Prince surprise around the corner. And the last three interviews on my podcast are heavily Jackson-related. What’s the best advice you have ever received? [Drummer] Bernard Purdie was doing a session for my father in 1975. Dad said, “Bernard, tell my son how you keep food on the table,” and he says, “The two and the…

The Hootie-singer-turned-country-star, who is touring this summer with Lady Antebellum, picked tunes that forever altered how he heard music. Al Green “For the Good Times” As a kid, this was the first song that made me want to be a singer. You believe every word he sings, that he’s living in that moment. R.E.M. “So. Central Rain” You can hear the pain in Michael Stipe’s voice when he sings, “I’m sorry.” I’d never heard anything like it when it came out. The Notorious B.I.G. “The What” I played this 10 times in a row when I got my first B.I.G. album, and now I listen to it before I go onstage, because it pumps me up. Radney Foster “Old Silver” This is the consummate country song, since you aren’t…

THE NEW THIRTY SECONDS to Mars album, their fifth, has what frontman Jared Leto calls a “rather, um, loaded title,” and he’s not kidding: It’s America. It’s also the most electronics-heavy album for the band since its self-titled 2002 debut, and its most pop-friendly LP ever, complete with guest appearances by Halsey and A$AP Rocky and production on one track by Zedd. “It’s not necessarily big, bombastic guitar anthems,” says Leto, fresh from landing in Italy for an arena date with the band. “For a long time, I wanted to make an album about the American dream and America as a concept – and as I was halfway through, I thought, ‘I guess I’m making that album now.’ ” On the single “Walk on Water,” you sing, “Making love with…

Rock at the March On March 24th, more than a million took to the streets to demand new gun laws at the history-making March for Our Lives. Artists came out in full force, including Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande and Kanye West. The normally neutral Taylor Swift even voiced her support, saying she was “so moved” by the event. <div class="thick-border"></div> <div class="thick-border"></div> Jamaica State of Mind Before hitting the road on their four-month On the Run II Tour in June, Jay-Z and Beyoncé went to Jamaica, where they turned heads on the streets of Kingston as they cruised around with a film crew in tow. (They were apparently filming footage to be used onstage during the tour.) This month, Beyoncé will play her first full show in nearly two…