Fader

Faithful readers, here it is: the 40th issue of The FADER magazine. Take a deep breath. To say that it was "a whole lot of work!" would not be dramatic enough. To say it was a labor of blood, sweat and tears would not be dramatic enough. To say that we climbed the K2 of reggaeton, stuck a flag in the top of it, did a little hip swivel and proclaimed it conquered, then scuba dove the Mariana Trench of hip-hop, found the bottom, rose back up to the surface with a never-before-seen species of DJ, only to rocket ourselves out to the far reaches of the indie rock galaxy, explore a planet filled with bedroom recordist aliens and come back to earth with their lost TDK tapes-would not be dramatic enough. I sit here, amongst the tattered ruins of what appears to be an editorial office, stunned, dazed, bewildered, but joyous: we have battled the evil forces of time, publicity, deadlines and printers in Canada who prefer to speak in French-and we are victorious.

Long ago, we had the idea to try and do something special for this 40th issue, mostly because denominations of ten have always intrigued and excited us. Thus the concept: ask eight of the most dynamic artists today to name four (or so) artists who they are interested in/inspired by/looking out for/would share their Cheetos with. Then, find those artists, interview them and take their photographs. Tego Calderon talked to us about salsa legends hiding out in PR, Young Jeezy name checked up-and-coming producers in ATL, Jim James nominated bros from the City of Brotherly Love, Yoshimi reminisced about Gamelan drummers who take deeper-than-usual breaths, Swizz Beatz championed Jamiroquai (but we couldn't get a hold of Jay Kay), Mattie Safer rode for New Orleans funk, Project Pat didn't really have to say anything (but he did, which was nice) and Dwight Yoakam mostly wanted to talk about his Levi's 517s. What's resulted is a wildly mixed bag of 40 movers, shakers, lovers, believers, young guns and legends. If you didn't know them, now you do. If you already did, then where the hell have you been for the last three months?

It's also (bum da dada bum!) our Fall Fashion jammy jam, which means that if you find exhaustive, incredibly compelling music journalism boring, you can retreat to our exxxxtended style section at the front, or take a little vacation with our mega fashion feature in the caboose. We're not hating-but we expect your September outerwear game to be wildly focused. And as for us, we're back to the proverbial grind: Fall is here and we're ready to get it. As someone from Hallmark-or fuck, maybe it was just Cathy Guisewite-said: Life Begins at 40.

ALEX WAGNER