Year in Review: Rolling Stone’s Photos of 2020

George Floyd Protests

Image Credit: Anthony Geathers for Rolling Stone

How the Black Lives Matter movement was built and where it goes next

Two days after a Minneapolis cop killed George Floyd in late May, the novel coronavirus tallied its 100,000th American victim. More than 22,000 of those lost were black, though we only make up 13 percent of the overall U.S. population. As the global pandemic was laying bare virtually all of America’s structural inequalities, unrest on the Minneapolis streets swelled into the largest and most numerous public demonstrations for civil rights seen in generations. Tens of thousands of nonviolent protesters from various cultural backgrounds, in city after city, are crying out “black lives matter,” the mantra of the modern civil-rights movement and the rallying cry against the casual acceptance of our deaths.

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Megan Thee Stallion

Image Credit: Campbell Addy for Rolling Stone

She built herself into rap’s boldest, brashest new voice — all while mourning her mom and chasing a degre

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Inside the MAGA March on Washington

Image Credit: September Dawn Bottoms for Rolling Stone

A few thousand Trump supporters attended the Million MAGA March in Washington, D.C. in November.
Grimes

Image Credit: Charlotte Rutherford for Rolling Stone

The real life and fantastic visions of a digital warrior.

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Haim

Image Credit: Yana Yatsuk for Rolling Stone

First they got through a health scare in their inner circle. Then came a global shutdown. But the Haim sisters are keeping it cool as they roll out their most ambitious album yet.

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The Killers

Image Credit: Chad Kirkland for Rolling Stone

How the Killers Started Over Again: Before ‘Imploding the Mirage,’ they’d never made an album without founding guitarist Dave Keuning. It proved to be much more difficult than they imagined.

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Bruce Springsteen

Image Credit: Danny Clinch for Rolling Stone

Ghosts, Guitars, and the E Street Shuffle: How Bruce Springsteen confronted death, saw Clarence in his dreams, and knocked out a raw and rocking new album with the world’s greatest bar band

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Judd and Maude Apatow

Image Credit: Shayan Asgharnia for Rolling Stone

The father-daughter team on life as a showbiz family, the making of the new Pete Davidson comedy, and more.

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The Last Artful, Dodgr

Image Credit: Clayton Cotterell for Rolling Stone

The singer and rapper has a skill for pop hooks that’s attracted Mark Ronson, Anderson .Paak, and ‘Euphoria’

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The Betrayal of the Kurds

Image Credit: Cengiz Yar for Rolling Stone

On the ground in northern Syria in the perilous weeks after Trump’s military withdrawal

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Gay Rodeo

Image Credit: Andrew White for Rolling Stone

James Walker, a.k.a. Nikki Star from Phoenix, Arizona, smokes outside before getting dressed to compete in the Royalty Competition.

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Rema

Image Credit: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone

How the 19-year-old singer and rapper from Nigeria became one of his genre’s most exciting artists

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Erykah Badu and Summer Walker

Image Credit: Kennedi Carter for Rolling Stone

Two R&B high priestesses trade wisdom on finding love, embracing their inner boss, and aliens among us

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March 2020: The Wiltern

Image Credit: Pooneh Ghana for Rolling Stone

A message posted on the marquee of The Wiltern in Los Angeles, California.

In March, Covid-19 wiped concerts and festivals off the calendar — and that was just the beginning. Inside music’s unprecedented crisis

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Bad Bunny in Quarantine

Image Credit: Gabriela Berlingeri for Rolling Stone

When the Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny was first approached to be on the cover of Rolling Stone in February, it was a far more innocent time. His record-breaking album, YHLQMDLG, was about to become the highest-charting Spanish-language album in the United States; and the devastating Covid-19 pandemic had yet to rip through the country, ending thousands of lives, forcing millions more in quarantine, and effectively putting a halt on everyday life as we knew it.

For the first time in the magazine’s 53-year history, the June cover story was not only reported entirely remotely — but it was photographed by none other than Bad Bunny’s girlfriend, 26-year-old jewelry designer Gabriela Berlingeri, while the two were quarantined together in Puerto Rico.

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Olympic Rock Climbers Brooke Raboutou and Kyra Condie

Image Credit: Samuel Trotter for Rolling Stone

How Rock Climbers Brooke Raboutou and Kyra Condie Are Revolutionizing the Sport

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Ayanna Pressley

Image Credit: Philip Keith for Rolling Stone

“We can be precise in the work of healing and justice in our lawmaking and in our budgets,” says the Massachusetts congresswoman

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Flo Milli

Image Credit: Eric Hart Jr. for Rolling Stone

The 20-year-old rapper behind ‘Beef FloMix’ has star power off the charts, and she’s just getting started.

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Covid-19 in New York City

Image Credit: George Etheredge for Rolling Stone

March 29, 2020: Nabil Alsaidi, stands for a portrait behind the counter of his corner store, Myrtle Mini Market, in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Nabil, who has owned the store for around 10 years, says business has been down around 40 percent.

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Phoebe Bridgers and Lars Ulrich

Image Credit: Yana Yatsuk for Rolling Stone

2020’s poet laureate of hushed heartbreak explores her metal side. ‘It’s one of those influences that isn’t very obvious,’ she says, while in conversation with Metallica’s drummer.

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Jane Fonda

Image Credit: Yana Yatsuk for Rolling Stone

She’s been an activist for five decades, and even at 82, the actress is still willing to put her body on the line for the sake of the planet.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Image Credit: Daniel Dorsa for Rolling Stone

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on How to Build a Green New Deal: The congresswoman on her vision for a post-fossil-fuel future and an economy that works for working people.

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America’s First Pandemic Concert

Image Credit: September Dawn Bottoms for Rolling Stone

At Arkansas’ TempleLive, singer Travis McCready performed to a crowd in masks in the country’s first concert of the social-distancing era

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Regina King

Image Credit: Yana Yatsuk for Rolling Stone

After more than 35 years in show business, the actor-director is finally positioned firmly on top — but no way in hell she’s resting.

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Boots Riley

Image Credit: Brandon Ruffin for Rolling Stone

“We don’t want to just ask for things to get better. We wanna say, ‘It’s going to get better or else,’ ” Boots Riley, the filmmaker, musician, and activist, told the crowd at Oscar Grant Park on Juneteenth 2020.

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Pop Smoke

Image Credit: Griffin Lotz for Rolling Stone

Brooklyn rapper, real name Bashar Jackson, spoke to us about working with Nicki Minaj, Travis Scott, meeting 50 Cent for a video interview. He was murdered in February.

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Yola Before the Grammys

Image Credit: Maria Jose Govea for Rolling Stone

British singer-songwriter and Grammy nominee Yola is all smiles as she preps for her arrival on the Red Carpet in January.

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Rico Nasty

Image Credit: Jared Soares for Rolling Stone

Rico Nasty at her home in Fort Washington, Maryland in March. She broke through with furious focus. Now she wants her new album to be the next ‘Yeezus’

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Hayley Williams

Image Credit: Valerie Chiang for Rolling Stone

Paramore’s singer opens up about her deepest secrets on her first-ever solo album

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Noah “40” Shebib

Image Credit: Ted Belton for Rolling Stone

The producer and engineer is Drake’s right-hand man, and the sonic architect behind a decade of pop music. Now, he’s finally fighting back against a disease that could take away everything

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Photographer Rahim Fortune’s Texas

Image Credit: Rahim Fortune for Rolling Stone

Austin-based photographer Rahim Fortune captured these images the first week of June 2020 to combat the “toxic images depicting us” in the news — and to show how people in the Black community had been affected.

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Lil Baby

Image Credit: Diwang Valdez for Rolling Stone

Four years ago, Atlanta’s Dominique Jones got out of prison and learned to rap. Now, Lil Baby’s a superstar who’s streaming in the billions and helping to shape a new vision for America

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Natasha Lyonne

Image Credit: Heather Hazzan for Rolling Stone

The ‘Russian Doll’ star took a painful childhood and brushes with death, and wrote herself the part of a lifetime

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Beabadoobee

Image Credit: Blackksocks for Rolling Stone

How the London singer-songwriter went from high-school outsider to unforgettable indie phenom.

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Greta Thunberg

Image Credit: Jack Davison for Rolling Stone

How one Swedish teenager armed with a homemade sign ignited a crusade and became the leader of a movement.

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Lizzo

Image Credit: David LaChapelle for Rolling Stone

Lizzo’s “music is sort of escapist and happy, and I was really drawn to her for that joy that she’s got. She is the kind of girl that I would have gravitated to in high school,” photographer David LaChapelle explains regarding his inspiration for this cover shoot.

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Phoebe Bridgers

Image Credit: Jessica Lehrman for Rolling Stone

Bridgers has sometimes found that people confuse her name with that of Fleabag‘s Phoebe Waller-Bridge, but she’s OK with that. “I love any association,” she says. “She’s kind of normalizing being regular, doing stuff that everybody does — like masturbating and stealing shit.”

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Miley Cyrus

Image Credit: Brad Elterman for Rolling Stone

When Brad Elterman met Miley Cyrus, the photographer felt as if he’d gone back to his early days on the Sunset Strip, where he’d cut class as a teenager to take a candid shot of David Bowie walking down Fairfax Avenue and followed his runaway muse and friend — Joan Jett — from the Tropicana Motel to the Santa Monica Pier. “When I was taking her picture: It’s interesting. She turns her head a certain way in a certain pose, and she really reminded me of Joan back in the seventies,” he explains for his photo shoot in 2020 for the January 2021 magazine cover.

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Paul McCartney and Taylor Swift

Image Credit: Mary McCartney for Rolling Stone

Photographer Mary McCartney captured Taylor Swift and Paul McCartney together in London in early October for our December cover story

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Chef Daniel Humm packs To-Go Box Meals Along With His Staff

Image Credit: Andrew White for Rolling Stone

Daniel Humm ran a three-star Michelin kitchen. Now, it’s a commissary for frontline workers — and he just may keep it that way.

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Bilie Eilish Tour Kick-off

Image Credit: Ian Witlen for Rolling Stone

Billie Eilish kicked off the North American leg of her ‘Where Do We Go?’ World Tour on March 9th at the American Airlines Arena in Miami. The tour would be posponed indefinitely later that week.

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CHOP

Image Credit: Nate Gowdy for Rolling Stone

A young girl visits the occupied police precinct with her mother and sister, leaping for the camera on June 28th inside CHOP, the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

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Endless Night Vampire Ball

Image Credit: Devin Yalkin for Rolling Stone

For more than 20 years, nightlife entrepreneur Father Sebastiaan has thrown an elaborate, annual weekend festival in New Orleans, Louisiana, right around Halloween. Its theme could loosely be described as “vampires,” but in actuality it’s so much more — a three-day romantic celebration of the occult, offering a playful yet serious journey into the magical realm. “The energy was magnificent,” Sebastiaan told Rolling Stone shortly after the three-day event in October 2019 (when these photos were taken), where the theme was Black Magic. “People really got into the theme in a way that they haven’t before.” This year, of course, plans had to be altered because of the Covid-19 pandemic — the in-person New Orleans event has been postponed until 2021, while a virtual alternative was offered during Halloween weekend.

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Mavis Staples

Image Credit: Nolis Anderson for Rolling Stone

The soul legend Mavis Staples and the country star Chris Stapleton have formed a deep bond, especially during the pandemic and spoke with one another for our annual Musicians on Musicians issue.

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‘WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER’: Photographed in Weaverville, NC

Image Credit: Mike Belleme for Rolling Stone

Photographer Mike Belleme captured photos of family, neighbors, and others in the Carolina region after the pandemic hit the United States in March. Here, a sign reading “We Are In This Together” is seen in a parking lot in Weaverville, North Carolina on Sunday March 29, 2020.

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Stacey Abrams

Image Credit: Josiah Rundles for Rolling Stone

Georgia flipped blue for the first time in almost 30 years, in no small part due to Stacey Abrams’ years of voter-advocacy work. “I’m kind of relentless,” she says.

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Soccer Mommy

Image Credit: Alysse Gafkjen for Rolling Stone

On her new album, ‘Color Theory,’ songwriter Sophie Allison wrestles with grief and turns up the noise.

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Asriel in Leimert Park

Image Credit: Samuel Trotter for Rolling Stone

Photographer Samuel Trotter captured portraits of individuals living within the community of Leimert Park in Los Angeles this summer during the protests that were sweeping across the country. “When the deaths started rolling in, one after another, I just shut down. I couldn’t concentrate,” Asriel says. I want to go out and protest [physically], but I’m afraid of getting killed or catching something that can potentially be detrimental to my family. I think there was a shift in the atmosphere with George Floyd; there was a shift both physically and mentally where a lot of people woke up and said, ‘It’s time to change now.’ ”

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Fontaines D.C. Performing in Ireland

Image Credit: Kevin Condon for Rolling Stone

After turning heads on their debut, ‘Dogrel,’ last year, the Fontaines D.C. flirt with psychedelia and echoey guitar — while their singer stands his ground. Here post-punk band perform in Ireland.
The Faces of Deportation

Image Credit: Federica Valabrega for Rolling Stone

A year ago, Rolling Stone began documenting the stories of immigrants around the country who are fighting removal, waylaid in detention centers or mired in endless court proceedings, with the stability and safety of their families hanging in the balance. Along with video producer Reed Dunlea and writer Tessa Stuart, photographer Federica Valabrega documented people who’ve lived and worked in the U.S. for years — some with little memory of their birth country — who now face removal.

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George Floyd Protests

Megan Thee Stallion

Inside the MAGA March on Washington

Grimes

Haim

The Killers

Bruce Springsteen

Judd and Maude Apatow

The Last Artful, Dodgr

The Betrayal of the Kurds

Gay Rodeo

Rema

Erykah Badu and Summer Walker

March 2020: The Wiltern

Bad Bunny in Quarantine

Olympic Rock Climbers Brooke Raboutou and Kyra Condie

Ayanna Pressley

Flo Milli

Covid-19 in New York City

Phoebe Bridgers and Lars Ulrich

Jane Fonda

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

America’s First Pandemic Concert

Regina King

Boots Riley

Pop Smoke

Yola Before the Grammys

Rico Nasty

Hayley Williams

Noah “40” Shebib

Photographer Rahim Fortune’s Texas

Lil Baby

Natasha Lyonne

Beabadoobee

Greta Thunberg

Lizzo

Phoebe Bridgers

Miley Cyrus

Paul McCartney and Taylor Swift

Chef Daniel Humm packs To-Go Box Meals Along With His Staff

Bilie Eilish Tour Kick-off

CHOP

Endless Night Vampire Ball

Mavis Staples

‘WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER’: Photographed in Weaverville, NC

Stacey Abrams

Soccer Mommy

Asriel in Leimert Park

Fontaines D.C. Performing in Ireland

The Faces of Deportation