Posted inEditor's Pick

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 […]

Posted inNewsletter

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.

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Posted inEditor's Pick

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 […]

Posted inFeature

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.

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