GREAT DAMES II INTERVIEWS WITH SOLANGE, DOLLY PARTON, TINA FEY, JESSICA WILLIAMS, CARRIE BROWNSTEIN, ROSE MCGOWAN, COURTNEY LOVE, GRETA GERWIG, KATHLEEN HANNA, ALANA GLAZER AND ABBI JACOBSON Table of Contents 1 TURNING THE TABLES (April/May 2017) A Grammy-winning singer/songwriter/producer/activist and fashion icon with a LOT to say, Solange is exactly the kind of star we’ve been waiting for. By Jamia Wilson 10 ALL DOLLED UP (June /July 2014) Our cups runneth over with love for Dolly Parton—country music’s BUST-iest badass. By Lisa Butterworth 18 Fey’S TIME (Aug/Sept 2016) Who better to usher in our 100th issue than comedy legend Tina Fey—our most popular interviewee of all time? By Debbie Stoller 28 SERIOUSLY FUNNY (Feb/Mar 2016) Catching up with The Daily Show’s reigning queen of satire, Jes- sica Williams. By Bridgette Miller 36 CARRIE ON (Aug/Sept 2014) The multitalented Carrie Brownstein opens up about Portandia, Sleater-Kinney, and the legacy she’s proud to leave behind. By Lisa Butterworth 44 PEACE, COURTNEY LOVE, AND UNDERSTANDING (June/July 2013) Ever wondered what it would be like to spend the day with rock icon and perpetual rebel Courtney Love? Well, here’s your chance to find out. By Debbie Stoller 52 She’S ALL THAT (June/July 2015) Laverne Cox, star of Orange is the New Black, opens up about boy- friends, black culture, and bell hooks. By Sara Benincasa 60 REBEL GIRL (June/July 2016) Kathleen Hanna, the undisputed queen of riot grrrl, opens up about her return to public life with her hit squad the Julie Ruin. By Lisa Butterworth 68 ROSE THE RIVETING (Dec/Jan 2017) Rose McGowan’s evolution from movie star to social media femi- nist warrior is super inspiring. And she’s just getting started. By Amber Tamblyn 76 GRETA THE GREAT (Dec/Jan 2018) Indie actor Greta Gerwig stepped behind the camera to write and direct Lady Bird, and created the best female coming-of-age film in years. By Jenni Miller 84 ALL ABROAD! (Feb/Mar 2015) Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer of Comedy Central’s hilarious hit Broad City bro down and act up. By Bridgette Miller SONG SEOYOON JACKET; WENDY FAYE JEWELRY EARRINGS. 38 . APR/MAY 2017 . BUST Turning The Tables With her latest album, A Seat at the Table, Solange created not only an R&B masterpiece, but also a call to action. Here, the soul-singing superstar opens up about her upbringing in her mom’s salon, talks about her “womanist” awakening, and shares a tearful moment with our interviewer BY JAMIA WILSON PHOTOS BY NADYA WASYLKO // STYLING BY PEJU FAMOJURE // MAKEUP BY TRACY ALFAJORA HAIR BY AMY FARID // NAILS BY MISS POP OLANGE PIAGET KNOWLES is a time trav- number of bold futuristic styles, including stunning designs eler. At just 30 years old, she already represents by Issey Miyake, whom she’s credited on Instagram for a bold new synthesis of R&B, funk, soul, and inspiring the avant-garde aesthetic she and her mom, Tina hip-hop, expertly carrying the mantle of her Knowles Lawson, developed for A Seat at the Table’s visual creative forbearers while imagining whole new elements. Lithe and graceful, Solange glides around the set Sartistic worlds into existence. with an air of purposeful lightheartedness, despite being Despite pressure to confine herself to fit narrow industry tired from recent travel. standards for female R&B vocalists, her latest album, A Seat During a break, I stroll over to check out the pulsing at the Table, is her most overtly political, critically acclaimed, playlist we’ve been enjoying, featuring Sun Ra, Sade, Outkast, and commercially successful release to date. In it, Solange Prince, Cassie, Michael Jackson, Animal Collective, and takes unapologetic ownership of her cultural pride, voice, and Marvin Gaye. When I notice the music is playing on Tidal— style. “All my niggas let the whole world know,” she declares her brother-in-law Jay-Z’s streaming service—Solange’s on her song “F.U.B.U.” “Play this song and sing it on your team confirms that she made the mix. As I continue to listen, terms/For us, this shit is for us/Don’t try to come for us.” I recognize how whispers of this eclectic blend of intergen- Clearly, Solange was unambiguous about her goals and erational influences made it in to her emergent sound. intentions while making her third studio album. Beyond Solange’s recent tribute to the 20th anniversary of serving as a love letter to blackness past and present, A Seat Erykah Badu’s iconic debut album, at Essence Magazine’s at the Table is a call to action. A breathing piece of oral his- Black Women in Music event, is just one example of her tory, the album empowers listeners to share and celebrate reverence for the artistic lineage that inspired her own evolu- their stories of triumph and tribulation, practice self-care, tion. Of Badu, Solange remarked, “she is mother, she is sister, and reach back for ancestral wisdom while marching for- she is friend, she is auntie, she is chief, she is warrior of many ward in the face of injustice. tribes. She is a beautiful reminder that you cannot put us in a I first meet Solange during herBUST cover shoot in box.” Her words, while directed toward Badu, could easily be Long Island City, Queens. Taking shelter from frigid winds, used to describe Solange’s own persona—one that centers the I confirm that I’m in the right place when I notice the shad- beautifully messy complexities of black women’s lives. ow of her long silhouette and curly fro swaying on the bright The next day, a few hours before Solange is due to “get studio wall. For the next few hours, Solange dazzles in a back to [her] babies”—she lives in New Orleans with her 39 KENZO JACKET; STELLA MCCARTNEY PANTS; LRS BOOTS. 40 . APR/MAY 2017 . BUST SAINT LAURENT DRESS. 41 husband, music video director Alan Ferguson, and her 12-year- Chatting more about how she “felt the sisterhood of black old son Julez from a previous marrriage—we meet for breakfast women everywhere” as a result of her upbringing, I share with at Hotel Americano in Chelsea’s gallery district. Illuminated by Solange that her conscious lyrics have created for many, includ- the sun streaming in from the patio, Solange sips decaf as if she ing myself, a sense of spaciousness and possibility in the midst hadn’t just spent the past 48 hours keynoting at Yale, modeling of a tense and traumatic social climate. “Thank you for recogniz- for BUST, and attending Open Ceremony’s protest-inspired bal- ing that,” she says. “I think that as women, and as black women let performance and fashion show. in general, we’re always having to fight two times harder.” Admiring her air of tranquility despite her demanding Solange straightens in her seat. “And you know, even with my schedule, I note that she truly “woke up like this,” as her older videos, I was so invested in the visual storytelling, of wanting to sister Beyoncé—whom she affectionately refers to as “B”—fa- see black men and women in the way that I see them every day, mously sang on her self-titled album. After commiserating which is powerful but graceful but also vulnerable and also regal about the power of the protests at JFK airport that occurred and stately. And how we use style as a language, and our pag- following Trump’s Muslim ban, and our shared aversion to the eantry, and how we communicate.” cold weather’s effect on our Southern-bred sinuses, we dive Storytelling is just one way Solange leverages her platform to into deeper conversation. lift up her community as she climbs. Like Prince—the late artist Solange starts out by describing how growing up in her whose activism inspired Solange’s January lecture at Yale—she mother’s Houston, TX, hair salon inspired her. “I saw women of walks her talk by investing in women and people of color, in all kinds, from doctors to teachers to strippers to drug dealers’ public and behind the scenes. For example, her collaboration girlfriends to judges. I saw the entire spectrum of black women,” with hairstylist Nikki Nelms inspired a tidal wave of YouTube she muses, vividly describing the clientele who she refers to as and selfie memes celebrating and emulating her natural black her “2,000 aunties.” Passionate about the power of the salon as tresses that became known as the “Solange Effect.” The phrase a convening space for women to care for themselves and tell was coined by writer Doreen St. Felix in Vogue to describe a stories about their lives, Solange noted the common threads phenomenon that both elevated public conversation about black between their experiences. After nibbling on her plate of smoked women’s beauty, and helped Nelms cultivate global recognition. salmon and eggs, she says, “I would see them come into the sa- Solange has also been compiling a directory of black-owned lon, and carry these woes of whatever they were dealing with businesses, curating a crowdsourced A Seat at the Table syl- labus, and speaking out about moving her money to a black-owned bank. “I was so invested in wanting to see black This past February, while accept- ing her very first Grammy for Best R&B Performance for her song “Cranes in the men and women in the way that I see them Sky,” Solange recognized the far-reaching impact of performers with social justice every day, which is powerful but graceful but legacies like Marvin Gaye and Nina Sim- one, who “push political messages through their music and artistry.” In a media and also vulnerable and also regal and stately.” political landscape that is becoming in- creasingly fraught with fake news and in the world, whether it be career issues, relationship issues, “alternative facts,” she used the Grammy stage to call for truth self-esteem issues, or whatever they were working through.