British GQ July 2022

BRIANA YOUNGER Writer and broadcast journalist Briana Younger is a music and culture critic and former New Yorker editor based in Los Angeles. For the cover of this issue, she profiled FKA twigs. “Getting to know twigs was such a beautiful and rewarding experience,” Younger says. “I’ve enjoyed her music for a long time and being able to pull back a little of the mystique was a joy.” Office Grails CHE KURRIEN Head of editorial content, GQ India “Keeping time is so much more fun when you strap on a Panerai.”…

One side-effect of this moment we are in is the ever-rising bar of purity: there are few things – maybe even precious few people – we can all agree on. And in moments like these, it’s easy to miss the great acts that are right in front of us. But they are, of course, still there. They always have been. One problem with modern heroism is the notion that it is a supernatural feat; that being heroic is extraordinary and therefore, something we should treat as unordinary – something that is not for ordinary people. But perfection makes heroes boring. It’s why superhero films were a total drainer until like, 2008. The first superhero film I remember was Batman & Robin (Bat nipples!!!) And what the hell was heroic about Batman in…

FIRST I WAS AFRAID, I was petrified,” hums Berwyn. He is in the middle of recalling the first time he laid a finger on a piano key. He was 15. There’s a Christmas concert happening and Di Russell, his music teacher, is forcing him to perform. But he really doesn’t want to. “All my mandems [mates] were going to be there,” he says. While everyone is getting ready, Berwyn decides to try playing some of the instruments. There is a music book on an electric piano with the chords written on top. He opens it on “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor. “I remember playing the first note while singing and bro, I felt like God. I’d never been that lucky. It just felt mad. I didn’t know my power. I was…

ON A SLEET - STREAKED Manhattan day this past February, Tremaine Emory swung out of his new workplace in SoHo in search of lunch. He spotted a bakery and stepped inside – only to be served something else entirely. “The guy in there sees me and screams, ‘GET OUT! Get out of here! I told you not to come in here – it’s for paying customers only,’” Emory says. Emory is talking on a video call from the neat but impersonal-looking serviced East Village apartment that is his current home, leaning in towards the screen. “This guy screaming at me, he’s a white dude. I go, ‘Why are you speaking to me like this, sir?’ And he goes, ‘Oh. I thought you were this homeless person that comes in and…