If you’ve ever been in a theater production, you might know how much fun it can be to play the villain. You can yell as loud as you want, break a couple of rules, and indulge in some scandalous vices, all without consequence. In the real world, life in the spotlight is much less forgiving, […]

Arlo Parks will be the first to admit she wasn’t one of the “cool kids” growing up in the small artsy district of Hammersmith in West London. But that hasn’t stopped her meteoric rise to popularity over the course of the last year. “The cool kids escaped me,” the 20-year-old singer, songwriter, and poet says, […]

During a year marked by the type of difficulty and surrealism you never actually think you’ll experience in real life, anything that makes you smile is worth committing to long-term memory. So, that day last spring, when I was on lockdown at my sister and brother-in-law’s house in Brooklyn, and caught a glimpse of my […]

Damon Albarn was prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic. In 1995, after his band Blur’s first paycheck from the success of their third album—1994’s Parklife—he bought a farmhouse in the countryside by the sea. “Everyone thought I was mad,” says the Blur frontman, and one half of the creative duo behind virtual band Gorillaz. “Everyone said, […]

Jorja Smith is lounging in her childhood bedroom in Walsall, her hometown 14 kilometres northwest of Birmingham, UK. “I feel bad that I’m feeling good. People have lost lives, jobs—some people don’t have homes,” she says. Smith has been non-stop since she released her debut single, “Blue Lights” in 2016. In the following months, her […]

From the moment Popcaan pops up on our Zoom call, the international dancehall star and CEO of Unruly Entertainment is on his best behaviour—for the most part. It’s an overcast day with light showers in Kingston, Jamaica and the 32-year-old is sitting shotgun in his Range Rover Sport, on his way to pick up some […]