Table of contents for February/March 2026 in Rolling Stone UK

TAYO KUKU JR Photographer Working with light as both subject and metaphor, I create images shaped by intimacy, resilience and truth. As a Nigerian-American photographer and director, my work spans commercial, editorial and portrait projects and centres on expanding how people and cultures are seen. My photographs draw on vivid colour and the atmospheres light can summon, rendering each moment with cinematic clarity and human depth. Shooting Jung Kook was an honour and a collaborative dream. He was grounded, open to experimentation and a genuine pleasure to work with, making the process as meaningful as the final images. CAMERON POOLE Journalist I’m a full-time digital reporter for Newsquest and a freelance music, film and travel journalist based in Essex. Over the past nine years, I’ve gone from contributing to small…

When Sam Worthington was plucked from relative obscurity to play the hero in James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) franchise, in many ways he was an unlikely choice. The fantasy epic was to be Cameron’s first feature film since the release of his 1997 juggernaut Titanic, and so, naturally, the lead role of Jake Sully attracted a host of Hollywood’s leading men, including major stars like Jake Gyllenhaal, Matt Damon, Chris Evans, Channing Tatum and Chris Pratt. Worthington, an unknown actor, who was living in his car at the time, beat them all to the punch because, so the story goes, Cameron felt Worthington was the kind of guy you’d like to have a beer with. The Australian actor’s bond with the Terminator filmmaker would prove to be one of the most…

There are many questions surrounding Jung Kook, global pop star and one of the most famous faces on the planet. About the 18 months the BTS member spent in uniform, mostly out of sight and in the kitchen, serving his military conscription as a cook. About what it feels like to step back into the spotlight as a bona fide soloist and part of 21stcentury pop icons BTS. About the music being quietly made for the group’s next album in Los Angeles, and what their return might look and sound like. Yet when we meet in a sunlit studio on New York’s West Side for his global cover shoot, Jung Kook is more focused on the everyday details – like what he’ll eat today. ● And oh, has he been…

Mika’s schedule is so packed that it takes him a second to remember where he is. “Fuck knows!” he says with a smile, speaking over Zoom from a smartlooking but hardly geo-specific hotel room. “No, I’m in Madrid!” he adds as the penny drops. “I flew in from London yesterday to do radio interviews and film a TV show.” That TV show is La Voz, the Spanish version of The Voice, which Mika has recently joined as a coach. Later, he’ll play a live show with a 2.30am curtain call – “only in Spain!” he says with an eye roll – before waking up early to fly to Montreal. By any rights, Mika should seem a bit manic, but actually he’s fun, friendly and unflappable. He’s heading to Montreal so…

‘Slamming the door on ageism’ It took 16 years, but they did it: Pusha T and Malice, aka Terrence Thornton and Gene Thornton Jr, aka the Clipse, reunited for their first album since 2009 and flipped the world of hip-hop on its head. Let God Sort Em Out, the precisely engineered monument to their own eternal dopeness that the two brothers released in July, breaks many unwritten rules. It’s a lyrics-first project, with more emphasis on verbal craftsmanship than catchy hooks, that nonetheless hit the US Billboard 200’s top five, matching their highest-ever position on that chart, back in 2002; it’s an album of startling maturity and vulnerability from a duo once more accustomed to boasting; and perhaps most of all, it’s a mustlisten, endlessly replayable set of songs from…

‘There’s no script’ For more than a decade, Joe Budden, host of The Joe Budden Podcast, has been a fixture on the rap internet, most recognisable for his, uh, passionate commentary about all things hip-hop. Historically, his rants have existed on a gradient of intensity from visibly annoyed to existentially pissed off (like in his famous interview with a teenage Lil Yachty, who was unaware of what the term “360 deal” meant). In person, however, Budden has a surprising air of Zen. He speaks in a calm, measured tone, even as he tells me about the rush-hour traffic into Manhattan from his home base in New Jersey. Budden first found fame as a rapper in the early 2000s, and is probably best known for his chart-topping hit ‘Pump It Up’.…

‘Can you root for someone annoying?’ When Cole Escola first conceived their Broadway play Oh, Mary! in 2009, the premise was simple: how did Mary Todd Lincoln feel after the death of her husband, the 16th president of the United States? It was to be in the style of Nancy Meyers, all flowy white linen and second chances at love. But the play that scored Escola a Tony Award this year was much more of its time – and its creator’s mischievous mind. Taking place during the last days of Mary’s marriage, the madcap story morphed the first lady into a crazed alcoholic with a desperate love of cabaret. This Mary drunk-vomits into a bucket, mean-girl taunts her female minder, and lusts after her hunky acting coach while her husband…

‘I won’t sell out for clickbait’ ‘Wait, Kit, what was that headline again?” Marc Maron is sitting on the porch of his house in Glendale, California, calling to his girlfriend. A muffled voice from just outside the video-call frame says something, and the 62-year-old stand-up cracks up.“ ‘Marc Maron Pioneers Not Having a Podcast.’ That’s funny.” Here’s another joke, albeit less ha-ha: Maron spent decades as a comic working venues ranging from laundrettes to LA’s Largo at the Coronet, as well as doing a brief stint in political talk radio. He felt his career had hit a brick wall. Then he revolutionised modern media. For the past 16 years, Maron ran his groundbreaking podcast, WTF With Marc Maron, from various home garages around the greater Los Angeles area, chatting with…

It’s mid-December as I write, and while the world winds down from a weary year of upheaval both at home and overseas (read: Trump’s America), I start to think ahead towards the new year. What do I feel? Well, to be honest, my thoughts tend to dance between extreme exasperation and radical optimism (thank you, Dua Lipa). It’s not as if we haven’t endured enough in the UK during 2025. From the rise of Reform to another summer of race riots, via a stumbling economy, there was A LOT to process. Yet, there was also hope in the form of a surging Green Party that has put Labour in a spin while making the right-wing media realise that maybe there is another way through the UK’s existential crisis, and that…

In Netflix’s talent-hunt show Simon Cowell: The Next Act, which aired in December, a guy best known for issuing stern judgements from behind a desk reveals himself as a loving dad with no shortage of anxiety. “I am very worried – I think we’re gonna fail,” Cowell, the former American Idol judge and veteran record exec, says in the show after audition signups are initially anaemic. The series, which traces the formation of a new boy band, also proves that the fundamental formula somehow still works – there’s always an unknown kid out there who can unleash talent so raw and obvious that even Cowell breaks character. “I’m trying to keep a poker face on and not smile,” he says, “but I couldn’t help myself.” So why put yourself through…

When I sit down with Westside Cowboy at a north London pub, they immediately regale me with astory about their trip to the cinema theprevious night to watch a 40th-anniversary screening of Back to the Future. “It’s the best film EVER made,” vocalist/guitarist Reuben Haycocks as he nails his colours to the mast. It’s undoubtedly a great choice, but one that feels even more on brand when you consider that the Manchester group have spent the past year riding a wave of industry excitement sparked by a self-coined genre called Britainicana. It’s described by the group as a glorious celebration of the mundane, paired against scuzzy guitars which call to mind Pavement and other 90s forebears. Even their name, meanwhile, is taken from cowboys in 19th-century New York who were…

It’s an overcast afternoon in early November when Rolling Stone UK meets The Cribs at their management office in Shoreditch, a quiet, well-decorated space lined with gold discs and trophies. The band are in high spirits, and it’s easy to see why. Five years since their last record, Night Network, The Cribs are back and feeling reinvigorated. They’re preparing to release their ninth studio album, Selling A Vibe, on 9 January – a record they view as their best yet, as bassist Gary Jarman puts it: “We’re always working harder to beat the prior one.” This workhorse ethic has allowed the group to quietly become one of the UK’s most beloved cult bands of the past 20 years. They were mainstays during the golden era of 2000s indie sleaze and…

Every year Bad Bunny gets bigger, with new records broken – and yet his career in 2025 feels like a massively historic moment, even for him. The Puerto Rican star kicked things off in January by releasing Debí Tirar Más Fotos. A deeply felt compendium filled with memories, love and longing for his home island, it also traces political issues like displacement and gentrification. His masterful use of sonic traditions, blending Puerto Rican bomba and plena into pop creations, didn’t just help the album ricochet up the charts (it spent more than 20 weeks in the US Billboard 200’s Top 10) – it drew a new blueprint for the future of Latin music. It also set the scene for another groundbreaking concept: No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí (I Don’t…

‘Stoned and paying attention’ The Studio, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s affectionate take on Hollywood, revolves around movie exec Matt Remick, played by Rogen, an angsty film nerd who’s finally climbed to the top of the greasy pole only to learn that his make-or-break project is a Kool-Aid movie. Remick, who fancies himself an artist, pays Martin Scorsese millions for a script he’s written about the Jonestown massacre, where hundreds die after a cult leader compels them to drink a poisoned version of said powdered drink. But the concept is vetoed by his boss. In the end, Remick caves, buries Marty’s script, and opts for a movie written and directed by Nick Stoller (of Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Neighbors fame), where the Kool-Aid Man hangs out with a box of…

It takes a certain type of genius to gift the president of the United States with a googlyeyed micropenis and get paid roughly $1.5 billion by your corporate overlords while doing so. Yet that’s exactly what South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone did shortly after renewing their contract with Paramount, right as the company was negotiating a purchase by Skydance – a deal that was believed to come with certain caveats from certain politically motivated cronies. Once they’d signed on the dotted line, the duo immediately produced the season 38 premiere heard around the world, in which a frighteningly realistic recreation of our current POTUS stumbled naked through a desert, showcasing that distinctly unprodigious manhood. (Someone finally put deepfakes to good use!) How better to handle the troll-in-chief…

‘Bringing a piece of home’ Despite the many peaks in Karol G’s career since she broke out of the music scene in Medellín (where she began performing as a teenager), the 34-year-old singer still exudes a near-breathless incredulity when describing a few of the milestones she hit this year. “I’ve done legendary stages that never in my life I imagined I’d perform in, like the Vatican or Crazy Horse,” she says, every word vibrating with glee. Those moments were all in some way or another the result of Tropicoqueta, the gamble of an album she released in June. It wasn’t typical of Karol’s albums, which have toggled between happy-go-lucky party queen and tough-talking bad bitch while launching reggaeton hit after reggaeton hit. Tropicoqueta was a deeper excavation of her roots…

SCOTTISH SPIN While best known for its whimsical knitwear (think dachshunds and ducks), S.S. Daley is currently keeping things classic with a made-in-Scotland capsule collection. After teaming up with a family-run Scottish mill, the British brand has introduced two versatile, cold-weather styles: the Eddie Fair Isle vest and the Harrow polo. Soft lambswool is spun in an array of hues including moss and mustard, but it’s the letterbox red that really steals the show. Time to dress like a laird, even if your ancestral estate is a studio flat.  ssdaley.com KAP IT When it comes to artful accessories, KAP Company is upping the ante. Founded in 2021 by Valter Törsleff, each drop is a limited-edition collaboration with artists and institutions. The Tabloid Cap, created with graphic artist Ehsan Morshed, features…

Adult DVD The next update of British guitar music – taking the Brixton Windmill’s post-punk bluster and adding more warmth and danceability – has been swirling all around across 2025, and will firmly take hold this year. Most exciting in this new crop of bands are Leeds’ Adult DVD, who sound like a punk band scrabbling around as they excitedly discover synth plugins and drum machines for the first time. It’s a ferocious, youthful, vibrant racket. Will Richards Alessi Rose She’s already opened for Dua Lipa and Tate McRae, but 2026 looks like Alessi Rose’s time to shine on her own and emerge as a true pop star. With lyrics that are unflinchingly honest and often deliciously cutting, she’s a bold and uncompromising new voice presented in a perfect pop…

A SNAPSHOT OF THE REALITY OF TOURING LIFE FOR INDEPENDENT BANDS AND ARTISTS Look, can I start this by saying I feel very lucky to go to different countries and play my whingy fucking songs whinging about my stupid, pointless little life. Before that, I spent 15 years of my life touring and playing in bands as a drummer for punk and psych outfits in Dublin and North America before eventually realising I was in the wrong game. But as time marches on at a speed I never fathomed it would, so does the way in which artists perform their music, and so does the way in which fans choose to receive said performance. And whilst playing to your phone in the comfort of your room seems like a surefire…

Maybe Liam Neeson said it best this year, summing up this brutally loathsome moment in history with a line in the Naked Gun reboot. The bumbling son of Leslie Nielsen’s Lt. Frank Drebin, he’s a man lost in the modern world, trapped in a time and place he can’t understand. “Electric [cars], huh?” he growls. “I remember when only three things were electric. Eels, chairs and Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago!” Look, we all felt that. This year was a disaster for our morale, our nation, whatever you want to stick an “our” in front of. But what was going on all over our culture, from the high to the low, was the fight against surrender. The fight against caving in to the despair you get watching everything you care about…

‘I have this endless curiosity’ You won’t find “Eusexua” in the dictionary. But thanks to shapeshifting artist FKA twigs, the title of her third studio album – a club-informed sonic landscape both synthetic and sympathetic – is one of those words that, even if you can’t define, you understand its essence. “It’s a pure feeling of being human … a constant state of everything and nothing all at once,” says twigs, likening the concept to childhood. “As we get older, we’re bogged down by worries and adult responsibilities and phones and emails and work and adverts – the things that consume us and leave us feeling insecure and self-conscious. Eusexua is a break from all of that. It’s like a breath of fresh air.” The same can be said of…

‘It feels like nothing is ever enough’ Every generation gets its hangout shows, from Cheers to Friends to How I Met Your Mother to Girls. But there was a notable void for Gen Z – until the arrival last month of I Love LA. Created, written by and co-starring Rachel Sennott, the HBO series follows four late-twentysomethings making their way in the titular city today, working (sort of), partying, fucking up, and just plain fucking. The two with real jobs work as a talent agent and a celebrity stylist. The other two are an influencer and a professional nepo baby. People speak in astrology and use the word “cunt” as an adjective. They vape and do a lot of coke and a lot of squealing. And if that all sounds…

‘It’s been a long time since, professionally and personally, I’ve been able to have a little spring in my step,” Louis Tomlinson told Rolling Stone UK in our recent cover feature about his new album. Despite the darkness that has seemed to follow him around in recent years, the singer made his third studio album from a significantly sunnier vantage point. “Hopefully that comes across in the record,” he told us. Since the dissolution of One Direction, its members have gone in wildly different directions on their respective solo careers. Tomlinson has leaned into his indie tendencies on his two albums – 2020’s Walls and 2022 follow-up Faith in the Future – while giving a leg up to hungry new British bands with support slots on tour. By album three…

“We’re not here to just push and achieve” What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? I don’t think I ever got the advice I needed at the time I needed it. At drama school, they told me I had no talent. I don’t think there would have been anything people could say to help me through some of those times. I should have been seeing a shrink. It was years before I could afford to. Consequently, I’m still in therapy, trying to make up for lost time. If you could go back, what advice would you give that young woman? I don’t know that I would tell her anything. I think I’d just give her a hug. You’ve been part of three major scifi/fantasy film franchises in Alien, Ghostbusters and…