This week we are featuring stories from Renata Brito and Felipe Dana, Jeff Weiss, Maddy Crowell, Stephen Rodrick, and David Jenkins.
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The Tragedy of Jayquan McKenley
From the current New York issue’s package on drill music comes this urgent, saddening profile of Jayquan McKenley, a sweethearted teenager and burgeoning artist whose murder sparked a new wave of handwringing around the rap subgenre. Even to drill’s defenders, it seemed clear that social media had sped up a cycle of retaliatory shootings; the Bronx’s […]
The Longreads Questionnaire, Featuring Neal Allen and Anne Lamott
The authors of the new book Good Writing share their insights on reading, writing, and their day-to-day life.
But Who Tells Them What To Sing?
“And thus another Hollywood tradition was born: film choruses belting out perfectly nonsensical prose with utter conviction.”
Loneliness, Power, and the Top 5 of the Week
“I want to be left alone, but I don’t want to be lonely.” Hanif Abdurraqib writes this about a tension that dominated the career of singer Phyllis Hyman—but it also feels like a familiar plea in this dim, early-January week, when many of us leave the chaos of extended family and drift back into our own homes, our own jobs, and perhaps our own small pockets of solitude.
Anatomy of Absolute Power
The people of Wilcox County, Alabama, remember a longtime sheriff as a god or a monster—it just depends on who you ask.
The Promise and Peril of Space Tourism
“A space tourism industry is being built on the proposition of personal and existential transformation. But at what cost?”
In Search of Chad Hugo
For music fans of a certain age (that certain age hopefully being 14 to 94), Chad Hugo is a legendary producer: half of The Neptunes, along with Pharrell Williams. Yet he always played the back — and has receded even more so in recent years. Hugo’s reticence may never fully give way in this profile […]
The Journalist Who the Nazis Could Not Silence
No one has ever received more nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize than Carl von Ossietzky. This is his story.
The Art of the Steal
The Social Register was a who’s who of America’s rich and powerful—the heirs of robber barons, scions of political dynasties, and descendants of Mayflower passengers. It was also the perfect hit list for the country’s hardest-working art thief.


