Rolling Stone - USA (2020-03)

12 | Rolling Stone | March 2020

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Editor’s Letter

“Most people who go into politics, they want to be in politics. For

me, policy is the reason we do this. It’s how do you make people’s

lives better?” —STACEY ABRAMS, on her voting-rights organization, Fair Fight

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Plastics

pollution in

Bangladesh

THE SCOPE OF OUR single-use-plastics problem

is almost unfathomable: Every year, we

produce half a trillion plastic bottles, and by

2050, the plastic in our oceans will weigh

more than all the fish. For most, the reper-

cussions seem distant. “Prior to writing this

story, I’d failed to clue into an environmental

catastrophe hiding in plain sight,” senior writ-

er Tim Dickinson says. Six months of reporting

revealed the devastating impact on the oceans

and the developing world, where most waste

ends up. “Plastic is inescapable in our modern

society,” he says. “Just as with climate change,

solving this requires rethinking the idea that

we can consume without consequence.”

The staggering scale of a secret

environmental calamity

Uncovering the

Plastic Crisis

INSIDE THE STORY

The Voices

of the Future

WHEN “ROLLING STONE” staff writer Charles Holmes

arrived in Houston to meet with Megan Thee Stallion,

he was ready to be hit full-on with the no-holds-barred

energy on display in her twerking videos and brash free-

styling. Up close, he discovered, the “Hot Girl Summer”

rapper is like so many twentysomethings — “earnest,

stressed, chaotic, but deeply ambitious.” The same is true

of the boundary-pushing young artists who join her on

the cover of our second annual Women Shaping the Fu-

ture issue. SZA is infusing R&B with millennials’ genera-

tional anxieties and eclectic pop-culture references. Ubiq-

uitous pop star Normani is finding a bold new voice as a

stand-alone act after breaking free from the group Fifth Harmony.

All three have overcome hardship on the road to success. Normani faced racist trolls
and profound loneliness as 5H’s lone black artist. SZA has soldiered on in the stu-

dio through earth-shattering grief after the death of her friend and mentor, the rap-

per-singer Mac Miller, and months later, her beloved grandmother. And Megan, who
also suffered the losses of both her great-grandmother and her mother last year, is

simultaneously working toward a degree in health care management at Texas South-

ern University. One teacher “was really hating on me, because I told her that I was
about to go on tour,” Megan told Holmes. “But we ain’t going to quit.”

Consider it a rallying cry for all of the extraordinary women in this issue. Oscar win-

ner Regina King is bringing gender parity to Hollywood. Stacey Abrams, who narrow-

ly lost the Georgia gubernatorial race in 2018, is battling voter suppression — and just
may be the Democratic candidate for VP later this year. Former CNN anchor Soledad

O’Brien is holding the mainstream media’s feet to the fire (on the right and the left) to

demand truthfulness in reporting. Scientist Katharine Hayhoe is converting evangel-
ical Christians to climate-change believers. And artists like the essayist Jia Tolentino,

the chef and author Samin Nosrat, and the actress-writer-producer Natasha Lyonne

are flying the flag for being fiercely yourself on page and onscreen.
They’re also not sticking to one lane. Senior writer Alex Morris notes that her time

with Lyonne “became less of an ‘interview’ and more of a real conversation when we

began discussing criminal justice and reproductive rights. I expected her to go deep,
but I didn’t necessarily expect her to also go so broad.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by everyone who worked on this issue. As Holmes puts it,

“I went into the interview thinking Megan could take over the world. I left thinking
Megan could take over the world sooner than I imagined.”

ALISON WEINFLASH

MANAGING EDITOR

OVER THE COURSE

of 16 years with

ROLLING STONE, senior

writer Andy Greene

has conducted more

than 1,000 interviews:

everyone from Howard

Stern (for a 2019 cover

story) to Weird Al

(eight different times).

His passion for the

minutiae of his favorite

classic-rock acts is

UPDATE

An Expansive Oral

History of ‘The Office‘

office legend: It’s a rare

joy to hear him recount

every detail of how

there came to be two

versions of the band

Yes in the 1980s. Now,

he’s channeled that

passion into his first

book. On March 24th,

Dutton will release The

Office: An Oral History.

Greene unpacks

what made the series

a modern classic,

interviewing more than

85 subjects, from cast

members and writers

to a set painter and

a caterer. “The Office

is one of the most

groundbreaking shows

in TV history — and

one of the funniest,”

Greene says. “I think

even hardcore fans

will learn a ton they

didn’t know.”