New Rolling Stone: Kings of Leon

They grew up traveling the South in the back of an Oldsmobile with their Pentecostal-preacher father, and now they're selling out arenas and living the high life. The inside story on America's hottest band by Austin Scaggs. Some hightlights include Austin Scaggs dishing out on the 13 things you probably don't know about Kings of Leon — like their real first names, and how to clear a room with jalapeños. Check it out here at rollingstone.com

Lil' Wayne is rap's alien genius on Rolling Stone Magazine

How does arguably the greatest rapper on Earth follow up a blockbuster like 2008’s Tha Carter III, an album that moved more than 1 million copies its debut week and solidified Lil Wayne’s place in hip-hop history? By shifting gears and attempting to conquer rock & roll. Rap’s alien genius opens up to Mark Binelli about his upcoming rock album Rebirth in a series of revealing interviews for the cover of the new issue of Rolling Stone, on newsstands this week.

“The rock shit just comes from what my life is now,” Wayne, 26, says. “I’ve grown into this person.” He released his first album, 1999’s Tha Block Is Hot, when he was only 17, and built his name on being the busiest rapper in the game, dropping a relentless stream of mixtapes and cameos.

But aside from plucking at electric guitars onstage and in videos, Weezy never let on that his rap career could take such a significant detour. Describing a wild night when he woke up in bed with three or four women he couldn’t name, Wayne reveals he had an epiphany. “I just got — I’m not going to say ’so good’ at what I was doing, but it became such a regularity for me that I got tired of it. And then I said, ‘You know what? I’m not going to rap on this one.’

Binelli follows Wayne from his posh Atlanta apartment to a club showcase where the MC checks out talent for his Young Money imprint to the studio — Wayne’s home away from home — where the superstar puffs his ever-present blunts and plays some Rebirth songs that recall vintage Beastie Boys and current emo, topped by Weezy’s Auto Tuned warbling. Wayne tells Binelli he knew he didn’t have raw vocal talent, but he dedicated himself to learning how to make his singing voice sound good on record. “I don’t want to be the best rapper in the world. Not now,” he says. “I want to be the best. Period. Now. My favorite rapper hasn’t done what I’m doing.”

So check out a visit to the isolated, luxurious and perpetually stoned world of "the greatest rapper alive" as he embarks on his next quest: to be a rock star. Check it out!

What Obama MUST DO! -Rolling Stone

In an open letter to President-Elect Barack Obama, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman urges him to please consider the following:

"Dear Mr. President,

Like FDR three-quarters of a century ago, you're taking charge at a moment when all the old certainties have vanished, all the conventional wisdom been proved wrong. We're not living in a world you or anyone else expected to see. Many presidents have to deal with crises, but very few have been forced to deal from Day One with a crisis on the scale America now faces.
So, what should you do?
In this letter I won't try to offer advice about everything. For the most part I'll stick to economics, or matters that bear on economics. I'll also focus on things I think you can or should achieve in your first year in office. The extent to which your administration succeeds or fails will depend, to a large extent, on what happens in the first year — and above all, on whether you manage to get a grip on the current economic crisis."-Paul Krugman

To read the entire letter click here. What do you think? He examines the many challenges our country is facing, the steps needed to restore our economy and the hope to inspire the believers as well as the haters.

Rolling Stone Interview: Bush Apologizes

Rolling Stone Magazine is running the first magazine of the year with the farewell interview they wish President Bush would make. Here is the interview:

So are we meeting up here because Michelle Obama is measuring the Oval Office windows for drapes? [Laughs] No. I just like it up here. Plus, people tend to get nervous in the Oval Office. Figured I'd make it a little easier on you by doing this here.

While I was waiting, one of your staffers told me a crazy story about a certain member of your Cabinet breaking wind in the Oval Office. Can you confirm that story? Well, like I said, people get nervous down there. It's — [laughs] — I can't believe someone told you about that.

But you're leaving office in a couple of weeks. Come on. Throw us a bone. Just think, you finally get to talk about all of these things. Look, I can't. Besides, it wasn't that big of a — OK, fine. It was Condi.

Condoleezza Rice farted in the Oval Office! When she was the national security adviser? No, this was when she was State. Just after I appointed her. And it wasn't no little whistler, either. She's a little lady, but she let that baby rip. Nearly blew [White House chief of staff] Andy Card's ears off.

Was this in the middle of something important? It was January 2005. We were meeting about the first State of the Union speech of my second term. I'm telling everyone about how I wanted to make a major statement about ending tyranny around the world and spreading liberty and freedom, and the so-called pragmatists in the office, especially Cheney, are flinching, telling me I should confine myself to achievable goals. It's a serious moment, and things were getting pretty heated. At one point I turn to Condi and I say, "So, Condi, what do you think?" And she's like, "Mr. President, I think you should — "

And that's when it happened. Ppppllllfft! It sounded like someone had started up a chain saw in there. We have this painting of the Rio Grande by an artist named Tom Lea in the Oval Office, and I swear to you that thing swung three inches sideways. She started looking around all innocent-like, like, "Gosh, who did that?" It was hilarious.

Doesn't she know that cover-ups never work? That's what Cheney said: "Condi, that's what got Nixon in trouble. You try to hide that shit, it looks 20 times worse." I tell you, it was almost a year before she so much as smiled about that incident.

Let's talk about August 6th, 2001. That's the day you got a memo warning about plans for possible attacks by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. What were you doing that day? I'll be honest with you. I was at the ranch, on vacation. I was watching the Hall of Fame game on TV. First NFL preseason game of the year, hate to miss it, you know?

I'm the same way. It doesn't matter what teams are playing, I watch it. Exactly. It's a long off-season, and you start to miss the game. So I'm watching it — I remember it was Miami and St. Louis. First time I ever saw Marc Bulger. He was just a backup to Warner then. I think he threw a touchdown in the fourth quarter. I thought to myself, "This guy looks pretty solid in the pocket. He might have a future in this league."

That's good foresight right there. Anyway, it was right around then that they brought me my PDB [Presidential Daily Briefing], and it said something about bin Laden. I mean, we get these warnings about foreign terrorists all the time. How was I supposed to know he was going to attack in the United States?

Well, the memo was titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in U.S." It was?

Yes, sir. Well, nobody told me that.

But they wrote it to you. But nobody told me that they wrote it to me.

Who's "they"? I don't know. Whoever is in the room. Vice President Cheney. Don Rumsfeld. Rove. Sometimes there's some other guys. It kind of rotates.

Do you decide who "they" is? No, they usually decide who they is. Or at least one of they does. Usually Cheney.

Interesting. What did they tell you they wrote to you about why America needed to invade Iraq? Sometime in the fall of 2001, pretty soon after 9/11, Rumsfeld and Cheney handed me a piece of paper. I asked them what was in it. Rumsfeld says, "Mr. President, we've just written you a memo explaining that we need to invade Iraq." And I said, "OK. Why?" And Dick says to me, "Because of 9/11, Mr. President." [Silence]

Is that the whole story? Yeah. Why?

-Matt Taibbi