Rolling Stone August 2018

“I believe this is a universal truth, one of the great secrets: The more you give, the more you get.”—Bitcoin billionaire BROCK PIERCE WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT, after years of shrinking page counts, slashed budgets and all the harsh realities of modern publishing – not just at ROLLING STONE, but everywhere – that we’d be growing again? Look inside. In our new monthly format, ROLLING STONE is bigger, thicker – more pages than we’ve had in a decade – and redesigned with a modern, energized look and feel. It’s a magazine we hope you’ll want to spend time with, and keep for your collection. What hasn’t changed is the mission: to tell great stories in original, powerful and surprising ways. We have space and resources to do more of the things ROLLING…

“I love your raunchy boss-status personality. You inspire me. Gained a whole new respect for you and Offset after this article.”—jfizzle, via the Internet Hip-Hop’s Power Couple At more than seven months pregnant, Cardi B bared it all for our July cover with her husband, Offset – from her actual baby bump and how she plans to be a mother to her candid thoughts on Donald “Dickhead” Trump [“Cardi B and Offset: A Hip-Hop Love Story,” RS 1317]. The chart-topping, record-breaking mother-to-be also posted the cover image online, saying, “This is so special to me and means so much! My daughter made it to the ROLLING STONE cover!!!!” Offset captioned the same image: “Can’t wait till my daughter get here.” Their followers showed their love for the expecting couple with more than…

PAUL MCCARTNEY cut most of his new album, Egypt Station, in Los Angeles and Sussex, England, but for the finishing touches, there was only one place to go: Abbey Road. “At one point he played ‘Lady Madonna’ [for the crew] on the original piano they used on it,” says producer Greg Kurstin. “It was mind-blowing.” The album, due September 7th, is a diverse bunch of tunes, ranging from the Latin-flavored “Back in Brazil” to “Despite Repeated Warnings,” a multipart epic in the spirit of “Live and Let Die.” “He has more energy than anyone,” Kurstin says. “Most people have a sort of 5 p.m. lull, but he’s still dancing around the microphone.”…

‘CAN I RIDE THIS wearing high heels?” Troye Sivan asks, eyeing a scooter suspiciously. The high heels in question are raising his pointy black Helmut Lang boots about two inches off the ground – “I’m not sure if they’re men’s or women’s” – and the scooter is the popular new motorized kind that you unlock with a smartphone app. Sivan steps aboard, kicks off and lurches forward. Another question occurs to him: “How do you stop it?” It’s mid-June and Sivan, a 23-year-old pop phenomenon, is in search of a good coffee on the west side of Los Angeles, the city he currently calls home. He’s got an excellent new album on the way, Bloom; a new single, “Dance to This,” featuring Ariana Grande, which premiered this morning; and a photo…

“A lot of these tattoos aren’t happening in the world’s best tattoo parlors, I’ll tell you that. They are happening in people’s living rooms and kitchens.”—KEITH “BANG BANG” MCCURDY, CELEBRITY TATTOO ARTISTFace tattoos can ruin careers, says Lil Wayne’s tattoo artist Dow Hokoana, so she refuses to give them to people unless they’re in the music industry. “I’ve even said no to Wayne before,” she says. “Some days you have to roll the dice and go, ‘Boss, I’m not doing that today.’ He was mad, but he trusts me.” POST MALONE RECENTLY went viral after getting the phrase “Always Tired” tattooed across his face, but it wasn’t much fun. “He said it felt like I was tattooing his eyeballs,” says his tattoo artist Chad Rowe. Malone isn’t the only artist making…

RISING STAR AWKWAFINA STRIKES IT ‘RICH’ She may be starring in two of the summer’s biggest movies – Ocean’s 8 and Crazy Rich Asians – but don’t assume Awkwafina, née Nora Lum, is living large. “Not at all,” says the Queens-born rapper-turned-actress. “Sometimes I look at my bathroom like, ‘I can’t believe this is my house, dude. I need to upgrade.’ ” That goal should be well within reach after Crazy Rich Asians (out August 15th), a blockbuster-in-waiting based on Kevin Kwan’s bestselling novel about the lifestyles of the rich and snobbish in high-society Singapore. As the movie’s resident bottle-blond best friend, Goh Peik Lin, Lum puts the “com” in this rom-com with her signature hip-hop swagger (see “My Vag,” the viral music video that launched her career in 2012) and gonzo…