A profile of Kanye West written in the style of an all-access magazine piece - using only quotes and statements that Kanye West has made on Twitter and other web outlets.

T La Rock was one of the pioneers of hip-hop. But after an attack put him in a nursing home, he had to fight to recover his identity, starting with the fact that he’d ever been a rapper at all.

How the pop star’s father and a team of lawyers seized control of her life—and have held on to it for thirteen years.

The murder of an Iranian band in Brooklyn by one of their own.

Previously: Nancy Jo Sales on the Longform Podcast.

"I don't know if I was as angry as much as I was misunderstood.  A lot of the things we did contained a lot of humor that went over people's heads."

A profile of Little Richard in the last years of his life, confined to a wheelchair and living in the penthouse suite at the Hilton in downtown Nashville.

An interview with rapper Drakeo the Ruler after he was released from prison, having previously faced the possibility of 25 to life despite being previously acquitted of murder charges related to a 2016 killing.

A lifetime of brutal injuries and misfortune robbed the world-renowned pianist João Carlos Martins of the ability to play his instrument. And then along came an eccentric designer and his bionic gloves.

Ah yes, you should also know that most of your colleagues are some of the biggest neurotics in the country, so you might as well get used right now to the way they're gonna be writing you five and ten page single spaced inflammatory letters reviling you for knocking some group that they have proved is the next Stones.

Harmony smiles, blinks and frowns. She can hold a conversation, tell jokes and quote Shakespeare. She’ll remember your birthday, McMullen told me, what you like to eat, and the names of your brothers and sisters. She can hold a conversation about music, movies and books. And of course, Harmony will have sex with you whenever you want.

A profile of new Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard, who in another life was a touring musician and hated Ticketmaster just like everyone else.

On his anxiety as a teenager, the treatment he was given for it, and the way that the psychiatry of the day failed his family.

On the road with Billy Bob Thornton and his band The Boxmasters. Twenty years after Sling Blade all he wants to do is direct but “but none of those Hollywood assclowns will give him the keys anymore.”

A profile of the pop star.

Introduced to the world as an inescapable meme, Danielle Bregoli was only supposed to have 15 minutes of fame. But reborn as Bhad Bhabie, the 15-year-old rapper is letting the world know that she’s got more time on the clock.

Another look at a popular myth.

For the longest time blues fans didn’t even know what their hero looked like—in 1971, a music magazine even hired a forensic artist to make a composite sketch based on various first-hand accounts—until two photos of Robert Johnson finally came to light.  The dapper young man pictured in the most famous photo, dressed in a stylish suit and smiling affably at the camera, hardly looks like a man who has sold his soul to Lucifer.

Why we love repetition in music.

How did a pair of young rappers from Scotland, laughed off the stage for their accents, land a deal with Sony and start partying with Madonna? They pretended to be American.

Twenty-seven-year-old Mike Will Made It and the rise of the super-producer.

The mainstream narrative is that a pop star ripped up a photo of the pope on “Saturday Night Live” and derailed her life. What if the opposite were true?

On the photographer Catherine Opie who has “made a study of the freeways of Los Angeles, lesbian families, surfers, Tea Party gatherings, America’s national parks, the houses of Beverly Hills, teen-age football players, the personal effects of Elizabeth Taylor, the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, Boy Scouts, her friends, mini-malls, and tree stumps.”

An interview with Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone writer Vanessa Grigoriadis on the finer points of celebrity profiling.

The second richest musician in the world, behind Paul McCartney, is James Dolan, owner of the Knicks and Madison Square Garden, whose band JD & The Straight Shot toured opening for Jewel behind an album that sold 113 copies.

The creators of This is Spinal Tap, the most influential mockumentary ever made, have been paid almost nothing. Now they are suing for $400 million.

A profile of Missy Elliott.