ÉTHE MUSIC WORLD IS STILL THE MOST INNOVATIVE, ENERGIZING, AND ECLECTIC SLICE OF THE AMERICAN- POP-CULTURE PIE. BUT WHAT ARTISTS SHOULD A MAN ACTUALLY BE LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? AND WHO WILL WE STILL BE LISTENING TO TEN, TWENTY, AND EVEN FIFTY YEARS FROM NOW? AS THE 2015 GRAMMYS APPROACH, WE TAKE A LOOK AT THE MUSIC MAKERS WHO, THIS YEAR, LEFT SOMETHING LASTING BEHIND

THE LEGACY PROJECT PORTFOLIO PARI DUKOVIC

02.15 GQ. COM 51 PHARRELL WILLIAMS THE MAN WHO NEVER SLEEPS

Photographed at Mr. C hotel in Beverly Hills. Thirteen Hours Inside Pharrell Williams’s Relentless Pop- Culture Machine BY DEVIN FRIEDMAN 10:57 a.m. Uniqlo, West Hollywood WHEN PHARRELL arrives, it’s as if in a bubble. Like Glenda, the Good Witch of the North. Starbucks in one hand, two Asian-American women assistants trailing in his wake, a Chanel scarf waving from his back pocket. Uniqlo has closed this store, in the Beverly Center, for an event: About thirty homeless kids have been given a shopping spree. Pharrell Williams, who of course collaborates on a clothing line with Uniqlo, is the surprise guest. He takes a picture with a girl in a her royal smurfness T-shirt and checks out jeans with a kid in a Lakers jersey. Truth be told, a lot of these kids don’t seem to know who he is. Most 7-year-olds don’t even know what a celebrity is. They don’t know that this is the man who, not long ago, was responsible for 43 percent of songs played on the radio in a single month; they probably don’t watch The Voice, where Pharrell is a celebrity “coach”; they don’t listen to “Blurred Lines” and know, hey, the genius behind that song wasn’t Robin Thicke, it was longtime super-producer and current pop star Pharrell Williams; and they don’t know that his 2014 album, Girl, is up for an album- of-the-year Grammy. Free skinny jeans in rainbow colors stacked to the rafters— that’s more intoxicating to a homeless kid than the reigning pop-music genius of our time. None of this bothers Pharrell. He is in his bubble, wandering the consumer video game that is Uniqlo. You could find a worse metaphor for Pharrell than (continued on page 104)

02.15 GQ. COM 53 ST. VINCENT OUR DAVID BOWIE • A guitar goddess with an unlikely knack for strange pop songs, Annie Clark has never quite seemed of this earth. But it wasn’t until last year’s St. Vincent that she truly located a planet of her own, filled with twisted and futuristic odes to rattlesnakes and transgender princes.

MORE → Read­ the interviews: St. Vincent in Luxembourg. Sam Smith on forming a new Rat Pack. And a video interview where Pharrell explains why “Happy” made him awkward. → GQ.COM WHY MAKE“ MUSIC? SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO TO THERAPY OR REHAB. ”

SAMSMITH THE NEW FACE OF SOUL • Two years ago, he was cleaning toilets in a London pub. Then, a job promotion: His debut, In the Lonely Hour—part funky falsetto, part electronic church-pop—crowned charts in eight time zones. Whether you realize it or not, you have heard the gospel-choir sing-along “Stay with Me.” The rest of his six-times-Grammy-nominated album is just as rapturous.

02.15 GQ. COM 55 FUTURE SOUTHERN HIT MACHINE • The name fits: Future sounds like a highly advanced hip- hop robot, banging out Auto-Tuned anthems. In 2014 he released his sophomore album, Honest, and a street-eating mixtape, Monster—and may have even secretly helped write Beyoncé’s hit “Drunk in Love.”

56 GQ. COM 02.15 MARKRONSON FUNKY WHITE BOY • We didn’t know what to think when we found out that this onetime party DJ and Amy Winehouse producer had a new album with lyrics by Pulitzer-certified novelist Michael Chabon. Then we heard “Uptown Funk,” with pop’s golden child, Bruno Mars, and saw a zillion drunk girls shaking their asses to it—and happily realized we didn’t have to think at all.

Photographed in Gramercy Park, N.Y.C.

02.15 GQ. COM 57 crying onstage in Chicago now girlfriend Tomeeka and New York. In a sold-out Bracy. “Relationships bring STEVIEWONDER Madison Square Garden about experiences—thoughts, THE IMMORTAL concert, he got so excited that emotions, expressions. All when he began to sing “Village of those things create music. Ghetto Land,” he just froze. “I We love love. I love love. I The Wonder become, late in life, a guy who forgot my words…,” he said, make love. I’m a Taurus. It’s meets you for kombucha. He’s totally unembarrassed in the a wonderful thing. But you Years Are Just also a guy who will surprise middle of that stage. “I’m just have to able to make love when Getting Started you with his informed taste so excited to be here.” Most you’re listening to each other BY MARK ANTHONY GREEN in contemporary music. anniversary tours sound and speak, when you’re praising “Kendrick Lamar is extremely feel almost like tribute bands, God. Don’t limit yourself to IT’S BEEN FIFTY-TWO years talented. But not only is he geriatrics trying tap into making love just one way.” since Steve Wonder was first just talented; he has a real something that existed decades Stevie doesn’t really talk, he declared a genius. Stevie was concern for the people,” Stevie ago. But Stevie seems to have preaches. He preaches the a rail-thin 12-year-old in Ray- says. It’s at this point in our an uncanny ability to tap into gospel of love, music, and how Bans and close-cropped hair conversation that Stevie jams the right now. “Take ‘As,’ for Tauruses must be pretty good when his first No. 1 album, the out to his own rendition of example,” Stevie said about at both. last album on which Stevland Kendrick’s new single, “i,” his a song from the same album. Meanwhile, Stevie is busy Hardaway Morris went by braids bouncing into motion, “That was my mother’s favorite learning new instruments—a the moniker “Little Stevie the wattage of his huge smile song. I’ve since used the song to kind of half-guitar half-piano Wonder.” The album was called, going up a few degrees as he eulogize her.” She died in 2006 called the harpejji that he of course, 12 Year Old Genius. uses all four limbs to tap out and is the reason Stevie wanted debuted at the Grammys last Little Stevie is now a 64-year- different rhythms to the song. to start touring again. “When I year while performing with old genius. He turns “i” into the Stevie sing ‘Another Star,’ ” he says, “I Pharrell and Daft Punk. He We met for a glass of Wonder version of Kendrick think of President Obama.” says he’s eating better but now kombucha on a mundanely Lamar—as though everything “It’s a given that you’re going he wants to learn how to dress beautiful Cali afternoon in Los that goes into his ears gets to go down memory lane— more stylishly. He’s flirting. Angeles, where he now lives. remixed before it comes out songs and music always have He’s having babies when most He’s ditched the Ray-Bans and again. “The good thing about a memory attached to them,” people have having grandkids. preppy look from his youth the young,” he says about Stevie said. “When I sing ‘Isn’t He’s still creating what he calls and now affects a kind of Kendrick, “is that they want to She Lovely,’ yes, I think about “sound pictures” every day. “I’m futuristic soul-minister vibe, fix things. They don’t want to Aisha, my oldest child”—the a lover of music. It’s not really with his thigh-length black fall into the same ol’ bullshit.” song is about the birth of Aisha, a challenge to stay relevant. Star Trekky suit jacket and (Icons probably don’t say now 39 years old—“but the In fact, it’s the exact same his visor-like shades. Maybe bullshit, either.) song also makes me think of challenge to stay relevant back part of it’s his tone: His voice Nyah, my newborn daughter. then as it is now.” is gentle when he speaks, as if LAST YEAR, to celebrate the She’s lovely, too.” Nyah, born And what is his secret for passing on wisdom from his fortieth anniversary of the in November 2014, is Stevie’s staying so fully plugged in, fifty- home planet. He laughs softly making of Songs in the Key ninth child and his first with two years after first being called when it’s suggested that he’s of Life, Stevie went out on a genius? “I was on a plane once an icon: “Honestly, I don’t even the road and played his most in Atlanta, and when the plane know what that means. God influential album in its entirety, landed, this lady walked up to is the icon.” I don’t argue with the way entire symphonies me and said, ‘I watched you do Stevie Wonder, because who am get played. For the event, he “ the Wonder dance all flight.’ I I to argue with Stevie Wonder brought onstage with him THE GOOD said, ‘The Wonder dance? What about God? But if you sell over more musicians than the entire is that?’ She was talking about 100 million records, win more Motown roster back when THING when I shake my head and than twenty Grammys, have a the album was made. On its sway. I said, ‘It ain’t no Wonder career that spans half a century, face, it was a rote experience. ABOUT THE dance.’ ” After he and I laughed and give to R&B music its He was performing an album YOUNG IS for a bit, I asked, “Well, Stevie, only historical chapter in the that everyone in the audience what is it, then?” “I don’t know,” past thirty years with any real had heard a million times, THAT THEY he said. “Maybe I’m receiving longevity (try putting R Kelly and in most cities he played something.… Something into the Rock and Roll Hall of the songs in the same order WANT TO FIX greater.” Fame), it’s probably pretty safe they appeared on the album. to call you an icon. And yet it felt like not even THINGS. THEY mark anthony green is But let’s just say he has a Stevie knew what was going a gq assistant editor. point: Icons are supposed to be to happen every night. Each DON’T WANT these fixed Mount Rushmore show lasted more than three TO FALL INTO types, carved from stone and hours. Night after night, he frozen in a heyday. They don’t was overcome with emotion. THE SAME OL’ move. They don’t change or Viewers swore they saw him grow. They probably don’t BULLSHIT. become full-fledged vegans in their sixties like Stevie—he has ” 58 GQ. COM 02.15

DIPLO POP’S SONIC EXPLORER • He’s known for being such a good DJ that EDM girls in bikinis can’t resist twerking while he spins records at his Mad Decent Block Parties. But what you can’t Google Image is the fact that when the pop world—from Beyonce to Madonna—needs innovative new sounds, he’s the man they call. (Or simply knock off.) Their next chance: reportedly two new albums in 2015 under the Major Lazer handle.

Photographed at the Mad Decent offices, Los Angeles.

60 GQ. COM 02.15 KIM GORDON QUEEN OF THE UNDERGROUND • If the tabloids covered noise-rock legends, this former Sonic Youth member’s rocky breakup from ex-bandmate Thurston Moore would’ve made headlines. Since they don’t, pick up her smart, rambunctious memoir, Girl in a Band, which tackles the split head-on and helps you understand the duo at the heart of what was one of indie rock’s longest-running, most beloved bands.

“ I DIDN’T WANT TO WRITE A CONVENTIONAL ROCK MEMOIR. I WANTED IT TO REFLECT MY LIFE. AND MY LIFE HAS NOT BEEN STRAIGHTFORWARD. ” RICKROSS MAN OF THE PEOPLE • We like to think of Rick Ross as The Last Outsize Rap Star—a caricature of raw street id in a world that’s otherwise moved on. How does he do it? Well, he still hustles hardest, dropping two albums in 2014 and giving fans plenty of resplendently bearded love.

Photographed at a Jimmy Jazz meet and greet in Harlem. MORE → Read the interviews: Why Diplo’s terrified of Taylor Swift. And Kim Gordon talks Dylan and Didion → GQ.COM

02.15 GQ. COM 63 FKA TWIGS A LITTLE BJÖRK, A LOTTA AALIYAH • Forget whom she’s dating—okay fine, it’s Robert Pattinson. Instead, listen to the music—loopy and strange, all open space and overlapping rhythms that would disorient if her ethereal voice didn’t anchor it all.

Photographed onstage at a “Design Dialogue” at the Edition hotel in Miami Beach.

64 GQ. COM 02.15 JAMES BLAKE ELECTRONIC EVANGELIST • This bedroom beatmaker has become a spiritual leader to twentysomethings the world over thanks to spooky and devotional songs like “Retrograde,” which you may know from HBO’s The Leftovers. Next up: an anticipated new album rumored to feature Kanye.

Photographed before a concert at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. 66 GQ. COM 02.15 DRAKE FIRE-STARTER • He’s been running rap the past four years, yet he released music in 2014 like a ferocious underdog: Via his blog, Drake unleashed tracks that somehow became hits, like “0 to 100” and “Tuesday.” Can anyone knock this guy off hip-hop’s top spot?

Photographed onstage in Phoenix during the Drake vs. Lil Wayne tour. LILWAYNE 24 YEARS IN THE GAME • The onetime “Best Rapper Alive” may have passed the baton to his mentee, Drake. But as last fall’s epic Drake vs. Lil Wayne tour proved, when it comes to stage presence and a deep stash of monster smashes, no one can vanquish Weezy.

Photographed backstage in Phoenix during the tour. YOUNG THUG WHAT DRUGS SOUND LIKE • This emerging Atlanta rap weirdo’s first hit was called “Stoner” for a reason. And his ecstatic singsong raps have only gotten trippier on two must-download mixtapes: Black Portland and Rich Gang: Tha Tour Part 1.

Photographed in his Atlanta condo.

02.15 GQ. COM 69 KARENO PUNK ROCK WITH A SOFT TOUCH The Yeah Yeah Yeah Gets Grilled by thought of being on an indie this habit of wanting to push Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig label was incomprehensible. myself out of my comfort So there was this naive, sweet, zone. I’m always a bit THE BUCKET LIST of one of rock’s great balls-out frontpeople— innocent thing that a lot of agitated, because as soon as Karen O, singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs—may not have included artists shared in the beginning. I get comfortable, I need Grammy and Oscar nods for the same track. But that’s what When you’re a young artist, to explore a di≠erent avenue happened for “The Moon Song,” from Spike Jonze’s Her. She even you want to conquer the world of my creativity. After I put performed it as a duet with Ezra Koenig at the 2014 Academy and make your mark. At the out Crush Songs, I felt this new Awards. O then took a sharp left turn on Crush Songs, fifteen tunes same time, I got used to this idea surge of confidence. But that featuring an acoustic guitar and her broken voice. It might that there are no guarantees. quickly went away [laughs], be the most punk-rock thing she’s done yet. Here, Koenig asks That’s something I’d ask you, and I’m back at square one. her about D’Angelo, risk-taking, and her selfies policy. Ezra, because you guys came up after the Strokes and us and Are you aware that D’Angelo that whole time when New York dropped an album today? EZRA KOENIG: You’ve When I saw that you were got red-hot. The Internet was No, I’m not. developed an awesome stage nominated for a Grammy for becoming a major player; you persona, wearing really “The Moon Song,” I sent you could put out a demo and get He dropped an album by loud clothes and showing a text saying congratulations. a record contract out of it. surprise, and someone was a rock-star version of You had no idea what I was Did you have that expectation? saying how taking ten years yourself, whereas in person, talking about. You wrote back, off can often be the perfect you’re like anybody; you like, “What? Huh?” In terms We came up at a unique window for a comeback. can be withdrawn or shy. of your legacy, it’s funny that time when people were talking Could you ever imagine taking If you were a teen now, would you’re so out of the loop, but about the Internet and buzz ten years off from music? you be posting wild selfies? I found it charming and cool. bands as these new concepts. Part of me is curious about what Probably! Because it’s just KAREN O: I can be pretty out So there was suddenly a lot would happen if there wasn’t self-expression, and that’s of the loop. A similar thing of pressure on any new band the obligation to release music really tough when you’re happened with the Oscars discovered by the Internet, into the public for a long time. a teenager, especially a shy earlier in the year: There was because you had a lot of I’ve had that pressure—once you one: What’s your outlet? zero expectation that “Moon people saying, “This is the start that conversation with I’m all for celebrating your Song” would be nominated, wave of the future.” And a lot of an audience, one of the hardest self-expression, and if you so when I found out, I was people saying corny stuff like, things is to walk away. want to do that by selfies, blindsided. This is continuing “No! The Internet is making It’s funny that you ask then I’m all for it. What makes that theme of not expecting us hear things too quickly, that, because I just read The me a little uncomfortable anything and then being totally and it’s too much pressure on Playboy Interviews with John has to do with its ties to a surprised. If you hadn’t texted new bands.” All these people Lennon and Yoko Ono. They need to be famous. me, I may not’ve found out were discussing our career— took place shortly before he was that day at all. My management almost dissecting it—so there murdered. He’d disappeared It’s self-esteem versus self- had no idea, either. was pressure to prove people from the public for about five promotion. I totally buy wrong. I feel like that era years and basically became the argument that, especially Has that always been your has come and gone. Because a househusband raising Sean. for women, so many things attitude? That all the good people just don’t talk about He talks about how it was the in our culture are constantly things that have happened bands, period, the concept hardest thing he’s ever done, attacking you. And if you do to you in your career have of a buzz band is confusing. walking away from that something as simple as take come when you weren’t trying? So now that you’ve conversation that we’re talking a selfie and say, “I look Yeah, totally. Back when the accomplished so much, are about. He needed constant good,” it can just be showing Yeah Yeah Yeahs started, there you more chill than when you reinforcement from Yoko you have self-esteem. wasn’t the expectation that if were younger? More stable? against that nagging insecurity The self-promotion thing is you start making music, you’ll It’s a mixed bag of nuts. There of “Who am I—what am I?” But connected to the confused go straight from having a are two things with me: One that five years really renewed way this culture feels demo to going viral and landing is that I never feel secure his spirit for music, for art, like you can be famous for a major-label deal. We were with where I’m at artistically. for life. So that made me scratch nothing. And who wants in New York passing out flyers And maybe that’s related to my head like, “Hmm, what that, anyway? As an artist, for our shows, and even the the second thing: I have would it be like to do that?” the work part is what it’s all about, really. Any perks you get from the success, that’s an added bonus. “ I’M ALWAYS A BIT AGITATED, BECAUSE How have you enjoyed being on Twitter? AS SOON AS I GET COMFORTABLE, I’m pretty inactive. I check Instagram more. I like the I NEED TO EXPLORE A DIFFERENT AVENUE feeling of connection you have through it. But that’s weighed OF MY CREATIVITY. down with a bit of “What am I doing with my time?” ” 02.15 GQ. COM 71 SPOON’S BRITT DANIEL RAZOR-SHARP ROCK • You’d think the laser-cut songs on They Want My Soul sprang from the mind of a Zeitgeisty 20-year-old. You’d be wrong: Britt Daniel is 43, and his group, Spoon, have been around for two decades. How many indie bands hit another peak on their eighth album? We can think of exactly one.

Photographed in the music room of his Los Angeles home. NAS RHYMING TRUTH TO POWER • The music industry has become rife with reunions and anniversaries, but Nas’s celebration of his 1994 debut, Illmatic, is “ one we can actually get ON ‘HALFTIME,’ I SAID: GO TO HELL behind. The documentary TO THE FOUL COP WHO SHOT Time Is Illmatic brought us closer to the perpetually GARCIA. THIS IS ON MY FIRST ALBUM! elusive MC, and the tour seemed to jolt him to life, AND WE’RE STILL TALKING ABOUT giving us high hopes for THE SAME THING TODAY. his new album in 2015. Photographed at a Los Angeles ” recording studio. 02.15 GQ. COM 73 IGGYAZALEA THE NEW PRINCESS OF HIP-POP • Four Grammy nominations. As many smash hits. And heaps of controversy and hateration. It all sprang from The New Classic, her cheeky album-length proof that—no matter how many feathers it ruffles—white women can rap their way to the mainstream.

Photographed at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.

“ IF I HAVE A SHORT- LIVED CAREER, AT LEAST I COULD SAY I SPARKED A CHANGE—THAT I INSPIRED SOME LENIENCY IN WHAT PEOPLE ACCEPT IN HIP- HOP. AND IF I HAVE A VERY LONG CAREER, AND CAN BE GYRATING IN A LEOTARD AT 35, THAT WOULD BE GREAT. ”

MORE → Read the interviews: Spoon on Spotify and the future of music. Nas on police violence in the USA. And Iggy on the best medicine for the haters → GQ.COM For additional credits, see page 107.

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