Dr. Dre & Ice Cube cover RollingStone

The timing’s impeccable as Dr. Dre & Ice Cube don the cover of the new RollingStone. (That’s one way of getting an audience upset at Kim Kardashian’s clevage donning the last cover, but I digress…)

In a few snippets posted today, Dre reveals one more tidbit on why Detox wasn’t completed and why he’s always in the shadows. Read the rest here.

I had between 20 and 40 songs for Detox and I just couldn’t feel it. Usually I can hear the sequence of an album as I’m going, but I wasn’t able to do that. I wasn’t feeling it in my gut. So I really thought I was done being an artist.

Dr. Dre reveals the real reason he can come off as a distant figure.
“I have social anxiety,” he says. “I don’t like being in the spotlight, so I made a fucking weird career choice.” He laughs. “That’s the reason for my mystique and why I’m so secluded and why everybody knows nothing about me. I think it added to the character in the movie because people get a chance to see behind the curtain.”

Brunch with RollingStone at Paris Club

*Lead photo: Misha Vladimirskiy for Rolling Stone

One of the best parts of Lollapalooza is covering the wealth of parties going on outside the gates of Grant Park.  Rolling Stone Live: Chicago has continually put on one of the most sought after events year after year at Paris Club.

Kygo | Photo: Misha Vladimirskiy for Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone took over Paris Club for brunch. Even though it started at 12pm-4pm, calling it lunch just isn’t as sexy as brunch.  Bub city catered a gourmet brunch and Ketel brought on the refreshments.

Partying it up at Paris Club

Special acoustic sets by Kygo and Marina and the Diamonds kicked off the first half of the party, while Galantis closed out the afternoon with high energy beats and loads of confetti.

Galantis | Photo: Misha Vladimirskiy for Rolling Stone

The craziest part was coming out of the club buzzed with oversized confetti in my hair… at 4pm on a Saturday. Had it been 12 hours later, maybe that would have been more socially acceptable, but that’s not as fun.

Rolling Stone and Paris Club definitely upped the ante for brunches from now on.

Kendrick Lamar covers RollingStone

Look at Kendrick up there reppin’ the Chi on the cover of the new Rolling Stone. With the cover comes a preview of what to expect in the cover story, which contains a preview of what to expect on the upcoming album — the newly titled To Pimp A Butterfly.

Here are my favorite couple of anecdotes:

Sonically, Lamar’s new album is adventurous, incorporating elements of funk, spoken-word poetry, and free-jazz, augmented by lots of live playing.

Lamar is vague about what specifically the title To Pimp a Butterfly means (“That will be taught in college courses someday,” he says). But he describes the album as “honest, fearful and unapologetic.” “You take a black kid out of Compton and put him in the limelight, and you find answers about yourself you never knew you were searching for,” he said. “There’s some stuff in there, man. It’s a roller coaster. It builds.”

More tidbits and a BTS video at Rolling Stone here.

Nicki Minaj covers RollingStone

I guess the headline should really read…

Nicki Minaj, and Nicki Minaj’s breasts, cover RollingStone

Here’s the updated HQ version + all-new excerpts from the cover story.

“Mad genius, manic diva” — that’s what the sub-headline reads for Nicki… you’re probably scrolling up to the cover to actually see that for the first time. But anyway, that’s an intriguing way to lead in the cover story. We’ll see what direction RS goes in.

“One of my goals was to give people a glimpse into my personal life, because it’s something I’ve kept very private,” she tells us. By now, fans are well aware that the rapper’s 11-year relationship with Safaree Samuels has come to an end, but Minaj admits she toned down the wild voices and costumes on the new LP to focus her songwriting on what was happening in her personal life, which was extremely painful. “I had to learn to do something as simple as sleep alone,” she says. “I struggled with ‘Do I express these feelings?’ And I decided there’s no reason for me to hide. I’m a vulnerable woman, and I’m proud of that.”

Minaj’s first love was an older guy from Queens she dated while attending the prestigious Manhattan performing-arts high school LaGuardia. When she discovered she was pregnant, “I thought I was going to die,” she admits. “I was a teenager. It was the hardest thing I’d ever gone through.” She ended up having an abortion, a decision she says has “haunted me all my life,” though it was the right choice for her at the time. “It’d be contradictory if I said I wasn’t pro-choice. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t have anything to offer a child.” She first rapped about the experience on a mixtape track called “Autobiography” she says she “didn’t expect anyone to hear.” Now the world is listening to every word she says very carefully: “Millions of people are gonna hear it. And you gotta watch everything you say — people find an issue with every fucking thing.”

ICYMI: Nicki Minaj ‘The Pinkprint’ (Short Film) | Nicki Minaj for Roberto Cavalli (Gallery)

808s ‘Most Groundbreaking Album’?

It’s definitely a bold statement, but one you can certainly make an argument for.

RollingStone just listed Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak as the ‘most groundbreaking album of all-time.’

OF ALL TIME!

(Sorry, had to add that.)

But the case is basically about how influential it was for a rapper to utilize autotune as a new instrument and add to the “emotionally naked” revealing lyrics. I like that phrase for this album, and recall vividly its impact when I listened to 808s over and over again in the coldest winter of 2008.

There’s a case, but what does the title really mean? It was groundbreaking period. Moreso than we imagined at the time as fans like myself came around over time.

Here’s an excerpt:

Kanye West’s Auto-Tune-heavy, emotionally naked fourth album came after a brutal year during which his mother died and his engagement broke up, but the album’s cavernous sound and exposed-soul lyrics confused even those who had been aware of West’s recent trials. Its core aesthetic was like nothing in hip-hop: freshly butchered feelings enumerated in detail, but masked by digital processing; beds of spare synths used to balance a mix of singing and rapping. However, over time it served as a new template for up-and-comers in hip-hop and R&B. Drake cited West as his budding sound’s “most influential person” when he was hustling mixtapes, while artists like Future further tweaked the idea of using Auto-Tune as a way to convey emotions that evoke too much feeling when spoken of explicitly.