on an evening in late August, just as Donald Trump is getting booked on 13 felony charges at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, a sherbet sunset in the western sky casts Santa Monica Boulevard in a Nicki Minaj–pink blush. But Minaj has no time on this day for politics, nor for the soft summer tints gathering outside the windowless sound booth of a Los Angeles recording studio. She is under pressure to hand over a mastered version of “Last Time I Saw You,” a teaser release from her upcoming fifth studio album, and she is nitpicking.
The verses sounded a bit muffled to her ear, so the team sent the track to a mixer, who brightened up the whole thing. But now it’s ping-y and “radio-ish,” she feels, and she swears she hears an ever-so-slight buzz underneath the beat, though no one else is picking up on it. A scholar of her genre and a rigorous wordsmith, she is also a painstaking listener of her own music; she combs through her recordings, rewrites verses, changes up her tone, adds drums, subtracts them. (There were 27 versions of “Anaconda,” her 2014 hit, before she blessed the single.) She presses her engineers to punch up certain words and ensure that every syllable of her raps is clear and comprehensible. Nicki Minaj wants to be understood. “I’m a bit…particular,” she concedes. “Sometimes things that the best engineer in the world wouldn’t hear, I hear. And you know what? I am always right.”
Denne historien er fra December 2023-utgaven av Vogue US.
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Denne historien er fra December 2023-utgaven av Vogue US.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Trust Your Gut - New at-home biome tests offer insight into the microorganisms that rule much more than just our stomachs.
According to a publication called Nutrition in Clinical Practice, these days, internet searches for "gut microbiome" and "gut microbiota" generate millions of results. Amazon teems with microbiome books, including microbiome books for kids- Meena and the Microbiome (forthcoming in 2025) and dogs- Healthy Gut, Healthy Dog. Gut health is taking over TikTok. Scan your refrigerator for the word "probiotic". Brands are shilling directly to your bacteria!
The First Wild Garden - A new book celebrates the historic English garden that launched a modern movement.
Without naming the most grotesque examples of tree mutilation in England, it is clear that much beauty is lost in our gardens by the stupid and ignorant practice of cutting trees into unnatural shapes,” wrote the Victorian-era gardener William Robinson in Gravetye Manor: Or Twenty Years’ Work round an Old Manor House (1911). Robinson’s fighting words were laid out in the preface to his book, an account of the decades he spent creating his garden at the Elizabethan house of Gravetye Manor in Sussex, England, and recently reproduced in facsimile by Rizzoli alongside stunning contemporary photographs.
Clean Sweep- Two seasons into her tenure at Carven, Louise Trotter is reimagining the label with pieces at once mindful, freeand beautiful.
Two seasons into her tenure at Carven, Louise Trotter is reimagining the label with pieces at once mindful, freeand beautiful. In February of last year, Trotter took up the role of creative director at the 79-year-old maison, reawakening it from a five-year slumber, and a chauffeur—customary for an artistic director at the helm of a Parisian fashion house—simply doesn’t fly with her bluff Sunderland upbringing.
Testament of Youth
In a new production of Romeo and Juliet, Jack Antonoff, Rachel Zegler, Kit Connor, and Sam Gold transform a classic into a timely, urgent work.
GLOWING UP FAST
I’m slick as an otter. I’m greased up like a Thanksgiving turkey
TIME'S ARROW
A celebrated Broadway-bound play by Jez Butterworth, The Hills of California, captures the youthful ambitions and dashed dreams of a quartet of English sisters.
The Shape of Things
Annabelle Selldorf has built a soaring career on gentle interventions, subtle forms—a design language of elegance and restraint. Dodie Kazanjian meets the architect of our moment.
SWING SHIFT
With the election of their lifetimes looming on the horizon, eight models— each of them with ties to a battleground state—tell us what’s important to them, what they’re fighting for, where they’re voting, and how they’re finding value and purpose in uneasy times.
Walk This Spray
Scented runways are the latest merger of perfume and fashion
Hidden Gems
With its timeworn cities and sweeping seascapes, the Southern Italian region of Basilicata is rich with splendors.
