This summer El-P drops Cancer for Cure, perhaps his most accessible record. Also known as El, El-Produkto, and Jaime (on official documents), the rapper/producer’s reemergence is a welcome return, but beware if you’re looking for radio-ready jams. In the middle ’00s El joked that he had made a $500 bet that he would never release a “happy beat,” and he is likely still winning it. Champions of last year’s rap epic Watch the Throne beware: that was what a million dollars sounds like. This sounds more like smoking through a trach hole. JONNY COLEMAN

ARTIST TOM SACHS AND NIKE CREATE A COLLECTION OF INTERPLANETARY PROPORTION

PORTRAIT SUSANNAH HOWE

The final frontier has long fascinated polymath Tom Sachs, whose artwork deeply embraces the majesty and mechanisms of space travel. This summer, Sachs is taking over NYC’s Park Avenue Armory for the latest iteration of his space-program series: “SPACE PROGRAM: MARS,” a four-week installation that turns the 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall into a massive Martian odyssey. Sachs is known for detail-oriented plays on functionality, and while working on his latest port of call, a necessity dawned on him: uniforms for the fearless travelers to the Red Planet. No purveyor of pragmatic fashions could be better suited to the task than Nike, a brand always questing after uncharted realms of human performance. The project, like all good collaborations that howl at the unimaginable, began with some healthy ribbing among friends. “I was giving [Nike CEO] Mark Parker a hard time about design and performance,” Sachs tells Visionaire’s Cecilia Dean. “And [Mark] said, ‘You think it’s so easy? You try.’ That was the beginning. We had one rule: it had to be equally Nike and equally Sachs.”

Read the full article from VMAN 26: CLICK HERE.

KEYWORDS: art, fashion, nike, Park Avenue Armory, Tom Sachs, VMAn 26

FLEXING UNBRIDLED AGGRESSION AND CRISP 808 PRODUCTION, WAKA FLOCKA FLAME REINVENTED GANGSTA RAP’S SOUND. NOW, WITH THE RELEASE OF HIS SECOND ALBUM, TRIPLE F LIFE: FRIENDS, FANS AND FAMILY, HIP-HOP’S HEAVYWEIGHT PROVES HE’S READY TO REIGN WHILE STAYING TRUE TO HIS ROOTS

PHOTOGRAPHY TERRY RICHARDSON
FASHION HEATHER MARY JACKSON
TEXT PATRIK SANDBERG

Walking with Waka Flocka Flame along the Bowery comes with a certain amount of hilarious conspicuity: six-foot-six with a hulking frame, Flocka—as he will henceforth be called—surveys his surroundings with a self-aware, wide-eyed lucidity, less a fish out of water than a tiger out of his cage.

When asked if he spends any time in Manhattan, he exclaims, “Not the Lower East Side! I’ll go to the studio but I hang out in Queens. I always live in Queens. Never ever, ever I leave.”

Born in Jamaica, Queens, as Juaquin Malphurs, Flocka moved to Atlanta as a middle schooler before eventually returning, his time in the South indelibly adding to his musical vocabulary. In both places, proximity to the music business affected him from a very young age. “I grew up down the street from Murder Inc., down the street from RUN-D.M.C., Russell Simmons, and LL Cool J. The Lost Boyz used to hang out with my family members,” he says. “Music has always been in my family.”

For the full story from VMAN 26, CLICK HERE.

THE WILD SUCCESS OF HBO’S GAME OF THRONES HAS REWRITTEN THE LAWS OF THE TELEVISION DRAMA, DUE LARGELY TO ITS BRILLIANT SOURCE MATERIAL AND ITS DASHING, MASTERLY CAST

PHOTOGRAPHY CUNEYT AKEROGLU
FASHION TOBY GRIMDITCH
TEXT JUSTIN TAYLOR

Game of Thrones—which you probably know as a bloody, sexy, thrillingly unpredictable HBO drama now in its second season—started life as a novel by George R.R. Martin, the first in a projected trilogy called A Song of Ice and Fire. It was published in 1996 (a year before Harry Potter came out in the U.K., two years before it hit the States) and did pretty well for itself. The follow- up, A Clash of Kings, came out in 1999 and eventually made the New York Times best-seller list. By the time the third book, A Storm of Swords, debuted as a best seller, in 2000, Martin had realized he was going to need more than three books to tell his story of dragons, palace intrigue, dynastic wars, smugglers, slave revolts, religious fanatics, international relations, incest, the undead, and maybe a snowbound apocalypse. A Feast for Crows came out in 2005 and was another best seller, even though it pissed off a significant chunk of his fan base. The problem, basically, was that Martin’s vision had gotten so big that the next installment no longer fit into a single book. He decided to break his story into two 900-plus-page books that would take place more or less simultaneously. Feast is set in the more familiar territory of Westeros, but almost all of its protagonists are characters whom fans regard as bit-players. All the major storylines from Clash, meanwhile, were left untold until Martin finally finished the companion volume, A Dance with Dragons, which came out in 2011—an 11-year cliffhanger! (And you thought almost two years between seasons of Mad Men was bad.)

Read the complete story from VMAN 26 HERE. VMAN 26 is on sale now.

A DECADE AFTER SPIDER-MAN—THE GAME-CHANGING BLOCKBUSTER THAT BROKE ALL THE RECORDS—ANDREW GARFIELD STARS IN THIS SUMMER’S REBOOT, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. WHO BETTER TO GIVE HIM ADVICE THAN TOBEY MAGUIRE, THE ORIGINAL SPIDEY? HERE, THE TWO IMPASSIONED ACTORS DISCUSS THE NATURE OF SUCCESS, STORYTELLING, AND CELEBRITY

PHOTOGRAPHY INEZ & VINOODH
FASHION NICOLA FORMICHETTI
TEXT ELLIOTT DAVID
INTERVIEW TOBEY MAGUIRE

It was a perfect Southern California day last summer when the British actor Andrew Garfield walked into Comic-Con, still—in his mind, at least—just another super fan. But he would walk out knowing things would never be the same.

A year earlier Garfield was in Cancun promoting his role as Eduardo Saverin, co-creator of Facebook, in David Fincher’s The Social Network, when he was told he’d scored the highly coveted role of Peter Parker in Sony’s Spider-Man reboot. The decision had been kept strictly confidential, and roughly thirty minutes after sharing the news, producers surprised Garfield further with a spontaneous press junket—in Mexico—to make the announcement. A visibly in-shock Garfield almost tripped on the stage curtain after being introduced by The Amazing Spider-Man director, Marc Webb ((500) Days of Summer). The ambush may have been a PR stunt, or maybe the cloak-and-dagger process was for Garfield’s own protection from the media blitz that certainly would have ensued had the information leaked. Either way it spoke to the importance of such a role. After all, the original Spider-Man trilogy grossed more than $2.5 billion worldwide.

Ten years ago, 2002′s original Spider-Man became the first film in history to pass the $100 million mark in an opening weekend. At $39 million, it was the highest opening-day gross of all time, a record that would remain unbroken—until Spider-Man 2. It paved the way for the Twilights and Transformers and Hunger Games, pushing box office numbers well past what was previously believed possible. Sort of like when an Olympian breaks a world record: what was once perceived as unimaginable—superhuman even—suddenly becomes the norm. Spider-Man rewrote the rules of the blockbuster, and in turn bestowed upon its cast colossal international fame. Spider-Man isn’t just a movie franchise, it’s a financial institution.

Suffice it to say that Peter Parker is a dream role for every young actor—except none of the obvious motivators appeal to Garfield, which he made quite clear at Comic-Con. As the The Amazing Spider-Man symposium was about to begin, the Los Angeles–born, U.K.-raised Garfield surprised audiences by taking the stand disguised in what appeared to be a child’s Spider-Man halloween costume, saying in a perfect American accent, “This might be the most incredible day of my life—I’ve always wanted to be at Comic-Con in hall H.” He then took off his mask, revealing himself, and proceeded to give a deeply earnest, heartwarming speech about his lifelong devotion to the character. “I’ve always wanted to come here as a fan, so here I am, as a fan,” he told the audience, the pages of a prepared speech shaking in his hands as he nearly hyperventilated, then nearly cried, then beamed with appreciation and disbelief. “I needed Spidey in my life as a kid, and he gave me hope…Peter Parker has inspired me to feel stronger, he made me, Andrew, braver. He reassured me that by doing the right thing it’s worth it, it’s worth the struggle, it’s worth the pain, it’s worth even the tears and the bruises and the blood…He saved my life.”

But you know the saying: with great power comes great responsibility.

For the full story, including Garfield’s interview with Tobey Maguire, CLICK HERE. VMAN 26 is on sale May 17.

KEYWORDS: Andrew Garfield, Elliott David, Inez & Vinoodh, nicola formichetti, Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire, VMAn 26