Table of contents for November 16, 2017 in Rolling Stone

Kesha’s Resilience A POWERFUL EXPOSÉ OF THE journey Kesha’s been on [“The Liberation of Kesha,” RS 1298]. The new music is beautiful, and the way she has overcome internal turmoil is an inspiration to us all. I’m thankful for her opening up and showing the world her vulnerability and beauty. Ryu Tsubura Yorba Linda, CA Kesha’s life story highlights the lies we were all told at one time or another, regardless of our background – the lies that tell us we are not enough and that we gain more respect from conforming and suffering than from being ourselves and cultivating resiliency. Iman L. Khan, Milwaukee The Pipeline Fight EXCELLENT ARTICLE ON THE Keystone Pipeline [“A Final Fight for the Keystone Pipeline,” RS 1298]. I’m surprised the president isn’t demanding answers…

EVERYTHING ELSE KEEPS changing – EDM sinks, young rappers rise, rock legends die – but there’s one apparent constant in music this decade: Diplo just keeps getting more famous. An unexpectedly moving new documentary, the Apple Music exclusive Give Me Future (out November 17th), showcases a history-making 2016 show that his group Major Lazer played in Cuba; Viceland’s What Would Diplo Do? offers a fictionalized, comical version of the DJ-producer, played by former Dawson’s Creek star James Van Der Beek. And the actual Diplo keeps making interesting, future-shaping music, from the trap-and-highlife-influenced recent Major Lazer EP, Know No Better, to his pop EP with singer-songwriter Starrah. And while he’s not the most sentimental of humans, he’ll never forget that Cuba show, the first by a U.S. act in more than…

Annie Turns It Up A couple of years ago, Annie Clark, a.k.a. St. Vincent, was an indie-rock favorite. Now, she’s an arena killer. Clark was in London to support her new LP, Masseducation. She also took time to perform at the BBC. “I don’t take time off,” she said recently. “Work is more fun for me than fun.” <div class="thick-border"></div> <div class="thick-border"></div> <div class="thick-border"></div> <div class="thick-border"></div> <div class="thick-border"></div> <div class="thick-border"></div> Stupid Ed Tricks In April, David Letterman inducted Pearl Jam into the Rock Hall of Fame. Eddie Vedder returned the favor in D.C., when Letterman received the Mark Twain Prize for Humor. “You’ve been such a good friend to music,” Vedder said. <div class="thick-border"></div> <div class="thick-border"></div> <div class="thick-border"></div>…

If Randy Bryce didn’t exist, Democratic consultants would have to invent him. The Wisconsin ironworker – who’s also an Army vet and a proud owner of a handlebar mustache – launched a bid to unseat House Speaker Paul Ryan last summer in a viral ad that touched a nerve with liberals hungry for a working-class hero after Trump’s victory last year. Bryce has since netted more than $1 million in contributions. “Trump won this district, but not by much,” he says, pointing to the shuttered GM plant in Ryan’s own hometown as evidence of his opponent’s out-of-touch-ness. “It perfectly illustrates how people feel.”…

REMEMBER conspiracy theories? You know, the sinister secrets our government used to hide from us, back when we believed our government would bother to hide things? It already seems strange to recall the old-school conspiracy culture from the days before Trump. Chemtrails or FEMA camps or the Loch Ness Monster seem downright quaint compared to what this administration does in plain sight. Comeygate? There’s no secret tape. There’s Trump on network TV telling Lester Holt he fired the head of the FBI because of his Russia investigation. This White House gang makes vintage conspiracy theories look like basketball stats from the 1950s, when the NBA was full of slow white guys, or baseball records before the steroid era. People used to worry whether the moon landings were faked, just as…

1. Margo Price “Pay Gap” One of the sharpest new country songwriters around just released her excellent second album, All American Made,an LP full of political indictments like the deceptively pretty “Pay Gap.” Price sings, “Women do work and get treated like slaves since 1776,” proving the roots of Trump-Weinstein America run deep indeed. 2. Ryan Adams “Back in Your Head” Adams takes a delicate rocker by indie-pop duo Tegan and Sara and makes it sound like a Replacements B side. It’s the best moment on The Con X: Covers, an album of artists covering T&S’s 2007 album The Con. 3. Tee Grizzley “Win” A trunk-rattling ode to stacking hundred-dollar bills to the moon, from a Detroit rapper who also knows how to explore the darkness and ambiguity that complicate…

Bert Berns was one of the pathfinding songwriters and producers of the Sixties, co-writing hits like “Twist and Shout” and “Hang On Sloopy” and discovering artists such as Van Morrison and Neil Diamond. But for decades, Berns, who died in 1967 at age 38, was a historical footnote. In recent years, that’s begun to change. In 2016, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, thanks in large part to a push by Steven Van Zandt, who also narrates Bang! The Bert Berns Story. The film, which just came out on Apple Music, is co-directed by Berns’ son Brett. He spent a decade working on it, diving into his father’s battles with health problems and his extensive Mob ties. “We knew about the Mob stuff with Tommy…

ON A WIND-SWEPT, FRIGID night in February 2009, a 37- year-old schoolteacher named Scott Nailor parked his rusted ’92 Toyota Tercel in the parking lot of a Fireside Inn in Auburn, Maine. He picked this spot to have a final reckoning with himself. He was going to end his life. Beaten down after more than a decade of struggle with student debt, after years of taking false doors and slipping into various puddles of bureaucratic quicksand, he was giving up the fight. “This is it, I’m done,” he remembers thinking. “I sat there and just sort of felt like I’m going to take my life. I’m going to find a way to park this car in the garage, with it running or whatever.” Nailor’s problems began at 19 years old,…

WHO REIGNS as the pop godmother of our times? It’s Britney, bitch. She hasn’t scored a real hit in years, but her staying power is bizarrely unstoppable – millennials idolize her, and she’s spent the past few years holding court at her Vegas show, where everyone from Beyoncé and Jay-Z on down has come to kiss the ring. We can feel Britney’s pain more than ever, because she helped invent the anxieties and tribulations of modern life. Back when social media barely existed in the mid-2000s, Britney epitomized all the ways it would become so (pardon the expression) toxic. She got slimed on every level, suffering through slut-shaming, body-shaming, “y’all”-shaming, mom-shaming, the works. Now that we’re all giving ourselves the paparazzi treatment with our phones – because putting your traumas…

‘JONATHAN BANKS wouldn’t say ‘nigger’ to my face,” says Jason Mitchell, laughing. The 30-year-old actor is referring to a scene in Mudbound, the upcoming period drama about two Southern families – one black, one white – in the 1940s. At one point, Mitchell’s character, a World War II veteran, refuses to leave a shop by the back door after being confronted by racists – including Banks. It turns out the Breaking Bad star was less than comfortable using the n-word on set. “I told him, ‘I’m ready to kick this scene’s ass!’ ” Mitchell recalls. “I gave him permission because it’s like, I gotta kick this up a whole other notch. Say it, and we’ll hug it out afterwards!” Banks gave in, and Mitchell’s reaction runs the scale from sorrow to…

Teenage Wasteland The post-9/11 era was a heyday for the escapism of teen soaps like Gossip Girl. Now, Riverdale (above), 13 Reasons Why and other shows are bringing that high school drama back – and adding dark new plot twists. George W. Bush: Not So Bad? The post-Trump descent into hell is forcing us to give Dubya a second look. Bush had liberals cheering after a recent speech in which he called bigotry a form of anti-American “blasphemy.” Not bad for a war criminal. The Post-Punk Revival Revival Great early-’00s post-punk bands like Interpol and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are doing reunion tours, LCD Soundsystem (above) put out one of 2017’s best LPs, and, like clockwork, word has it the Strokes are back in the studio. The Golden Age of…

When Donald Trump named Steve Bannon his chief strategist last November, the backlash was immediate, overwhelming and – since the position didn’t require Senate confirmation – totally useless. But a mysterious organization soon materialized on Twitter offering some hope: a way to take on Breitbart News, the right-wing site Bannon led. Sleeping Giants’ instructions were simple: “1) look on Breitbart & take a screenshot of an ad; 2) tweet it to the advertiser with a polite note; 3) tag @slpng_giants.” Confronted publicly, those companies had to admit their brands were subsidizing stories about the evils of feminism and the glorious heritage of the Confederate flag. Sleeping Giants conceals its operators’ identities, though it admits some have day jobs in marketing. Thanks to the company’s campaign, 3,318 advertisers have blacklisted Breitbart,…

STOCKHOLM LABEL Northern Electronics has developed a windfall of intriguing, moody and harsh electronic music: industrial dance (Varg), dubby bass (CA2+), snow-crunched ambient (Isorinne), deep techno (Acronym, Korridor) and noise (Vit Fana). “We don’t consider all these different parts. It’s the same vibe,” says Anthony Linnell, who runs the label along with Jonas Rönnberg, the man behind Varg. “It’s kind of boring here,” says Rönnberg, adding that Stockholm’s long, dark winters and short, bright summers drive creativity. “I tried to make an R&B album,” he recalls. “It doesn’t sound like one at all. It’s the same with Northern Electronics. No matter what you try to do, it’s more of a mindset than actual genres.”…

Bob Dylan Trouble No More: The Bootleg Series Vol. 13/1979-1981 Columbia/Legacy HHHH   The argument for this edition of the Bootleg Series is familiar: A disparaged period in Bob Dylan’s career (this time, the gospel years) was better than you think. Once again, great roadwork demonstrates his nomadic genius. The first two CDs, assembled from live tracks spanning 24 months and 19 cities, showcase a soul-drenched band that could bend toward tradition without losing brute force. A 1981 version of “Gotta Serve Somebody” turns the song from a shuffle into a stomp. It’s followed by a 1979 performance of one of 14 unreleased songs, “Ain’t No Man Righteous, No Not One,” that opens with guitar boogie before sliding into a reggae groove. Moments of lubricious spirituality are less than abundant…

The former Police drummer just released the debut LP by his new band Gizmodrome, which features King Crimson’s Adrian Belew on guitar. Captain Beefheart “Tropical Hot Dog Night” This sounds like a large band gone mad. He couldn’t get real Brecker Brothers-type players, so the result is creativity rather than chops. Dr. John “I Walk on Guided Splinters” This has a dark, echoey, Cajun atmosphere. But it has that atmosphere from the wrong side of midnight. Martha and the Vandellas “Dancing in the Street” It’s about wild abandon. When you hear this song, you know it’s going on down in the street. Let’s get down there. Jimi Hendrix “Spanish Castle Magic” This is one of the more explosive Hendrix tracks, where the drums are thrashing nonstop and his riff just…

A plane just crashed in atlanta. well, sort of. 21 Savage is holed up in his colossal house on the city’s northwest side, having some fun with his favorite new hobby: a flight simulator, the same one pilots use. “It’s really easy, actually,” he says, taking off his headset. The gravel-voiced rapper is relaxing after a busy few months that included the release of his explosive, moody debut, Issa Album, and a cameo on Post Malone’s Number One hit, “Rockstar.” He’s dressed down in a pair of red Adidas jogging pants and a plain white tank top. “I don’t give a damn what I wear,” he says. “Unless it’s something like a big-ass festival.” Usually, that means a combination of comfort and swagger. “I’ve been on some plain-Jane shit,” he…

Fats domino was never a typical rock & roll star. On the road, he packed a hot plate and packages of rice and beans so he could cook his favorite meals in hotels. He stayed married to the same woman for more than 60 years. And he downplayed rock & roll’s wild side. After riots broke out at two of his concerts in 1956, he told a reporter, “I never would use dirty lyrics. And I don’t use body movements either. I just play the piano, or I sing and clap my hands.” Yet Domino, who died on October 24th in Harvey, Louisiana, at age 89 of natural causes, was a quietly volcanic founding father of rock & roll. His early classics like “Blueberry Hill,” “I’m Walkin’ ” and “Ain’t That…

CARDI B is butt-naked in the doorway of her hotel bathroom, yelling about her vagina. On a mid-October evening, she’s readying herself for a college show in Baltimore, and the toiletries provided by the hotel aren’t to her liking. “That soap gave me the yeast infection of 2017!” she hollers in her thick Bronx accent. “My pussy was burnin’ like a Mexican taco!” “People talk shit. I can’t make myself unfamous. I might as well make money.” It takes all of 10 seconds in Cardi B’s presence to be reminded of the sheer force and hilarity of her personality. Simply being Cardi B, at maximum volume, made her a star – first on Instagram, then on the VH1 reality show Love & Hip-Hop: New York – before she’d recorded any…

Comedy has always been a coping mechanism for Tiffany Haddish, whose South Central L.A. childhood went from “pretty normal” to decidedly not so after her mother suffered brain damage in a car accident. Then nine, she was charged with taking care of her mom and four siblings, before the kids landed in foster care. By high school, Haddish was acting in plays, typically cast as “the maid or the monkey or something funny. My social worker was like, ‘You got two choices: You can go to Laugh Factory Comedy Camp or you can go to psychiatric therapy, because something is wrong with you, child.’ ” It was in the parking lot of the Laugh Factory in Hollywood a decade later that Kevin Hart noticed that Haddish was living out of her…

Grace van patten’s dad will soon be seeing her boobs. “That’s what’s going on in my mind,” she says, staring out at the Manhattan skyline from the rooftop bar of a Brooklyn hotel, pursing her very pursable lips. “Grandma. Cousins. Uncles. They’re all gonna see my boobs!” That’s because, a few days after our interview, Noah Baumbach’s latest feature, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), will be screened at the New York Film Festival. It’s Van Patten’s fifth film since the 20-year-old New Yorker graduated from LaGuardia High School (the school that inspired Fame), and the one likely to be her big breakout. Not because of the scenes in which her boobs are on display – framed as college-freshman performance art that she shamelessly, charmingly shares with her onscreen family…

CALL IT the Woke Playlist: On September 5th, as the Trump administration moved to end DACA, Spotify pushed out its No Moment for Silence playlist, with music and messages of support for Dreamers from Khalid, Demi Lovato, Camila Cabello and more. July’s I’m With the Banned playlist paired U.S. stars with artists from countries targeted by the travel ban, like Pusha T and Syrian MC Moh Flow. Expect more playlists like these. “With this administration,” says Jackie Jantos, Spotify’s vice president of creative and brand strategy, “we won’t run out of opportunities.”…

In 2015, Jorge Fonseca, an A&R man for Sony Music Latin, went to Puerto Rico in search of new sounds. “When you go to the island, the streets speak to you,” he says. On this particular visit, he noticed something different blaring from passing vehicles: “I started hearing more trap.” More specifically, he was hearing Latin trap, which blends smooth Latin American crooning and touches of reggaeton with the sound of traditional trap, whose roots lie in the hyperactive high-hats, 808 bass and gritty lyrics of Nineties Southern hip-hop. Latin trap got a coming-out party on the compilation Trap Capos: Season 1, which topped Billboard’s Latin Rhythm Albums chart in 2016, and singles by artists like Puerto Rican rapper-singer Bad Bunny and Colombian vocalist Karol G have amassed streaming numbers…

“DON’T FREEZE,” a member of an African special-forces unit advises her king, T’Challa, as he prepares to leap from a speeding jet into battle. With regal calm, he replies, “I never freeze.” (You can’t freeze if you’re subzero-cool.) He dons a black mask and drops from the sky as a car explodes beneath him. Screen time: 10 seconds. Time spent waiting to see that moment become a reality? A generation. Much as this year belonged to Wonder Woman, next spring should belong to T’Challa. When Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther opens, a superhero (played by Chadwick Boseman) with unapologetic black swagger will finally have the cultural spotlight, 50 years after the character debuted in a Marvel comic. “I feel an incredible opportunity, and a responsibility,” says Coogler. That feeling is familiar…

WIM HOF’S position on big-big-name celebrities like Jim Carrey, Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise is that they are going to help take him and his far-out, revolutionary, health-restoring way of deep breathing, known as the Wim Hof Method (WHM), to the next level. The level it’s at now is disappointing. Here he is, claiming to hold the secret to curing MS, arthritis, diabetes, fear, depression, anxiety, pain, PTSD, bipolar disorder, cancer, you name it, and nobody seems to care. It doesn’t matter to him that over the past few years he’s become some kind of global cultural phenomenon, making media appearances all over (Discovery Channel, ABC, NBC, National Geographic Channel) to provide the lowdown on not only his breathing technique but also his nearly superhuman ability to withstand cold, which…

“I’m not the boy that You thought you wanted.Please don’t get angry. Have faith in me.”—Sam Smith, “Him” <p class="space"></p> Sam Smith The Thrill of It All Capitol HHHH   The second LP from English retro-soul powerhouse Sam Smith doubles down on the magnificent, gender-nonconforming voice he showcased on his 2014 debut, In the Lonely Hour. The results knight one of the mightiest, most expressive singers of his generation. Where Lonely Hour led with beats, The Thrill of It All opens on lonely piano chords and Smith’s whispering high tenor, which sweeps up to falsetto on the pre-chorus, soon echoed by a choir and hand claps. The song, “Too Good at Goodbyes,” has gotten more than 150 million YouTube plays since its release as a single, and it establishes the…

What’s the best advice you ever received? B.B. King laid quite a simplistic statement on me: Learn to play what you want to hear. When you’re trying to learn an instrument, chances are you find yourself at the feet of a teacher who may have an idea of what you should learn. But if you learn to play what you want to hear in your head, you are steps ahead. What do you do to relax? I have had the good fortune to be invited into the secret world of Jimmy Shine, a California hot-rodder who really knows which way is up. He lets me tiptoe into the garage and pick up a wrench and a torch once in a while. What’s your favorite city in the world? Las Vegas.…