King Kong Issue 19

/ JT
For JT, controversy isn’t a choice; it’s her birthright. “I like to write from experience, I just talk my shit and speak my truth,” she says, embracing her authenticity with no apologies. Born controversial, she doesn’t see it that way—she just sees a world too sensitive, petty, and bored. “People are just pussy and mad for no reason,” she shrugs, dismantling the idea of controversy as something to fear. To her, it’s just part of being real in a world that craves to disagree. Fashion is a key element of her self-expression, a language in itself: “With fashion, all I have to do is post a picture and it speaks for me.” JT is the kind of artist who thrives on starting conversations—whether people are talking about her or against her. The new JT? “Fantasy, fantasy, and… fantasy,” she declares, fully embracing her reinvention and reminding us that controversy is just noise when you’re living unapologetically.

 / Mat Maitland
Frozen mid-swipe, mid-apocalypse. Progress becomes preservation. Identity becomes exhibit. Extinction becomes entertainment. Humanity, reframed as artifact. Welcome to The Controversy Issue—where history is a hologram, the body a battleground, and the future already behind glass
 
/ Lexie Liu
—“I’m not here to fit in. I’m here to rewire. 不迎合, 重塑”

Engineered for the algorithm, sculpted by screens, and sharpened into a spectacle of modern perfection—Lexie Liu is the ultimate pop girl in an age of performance. Every pose, every pixel is calculated. But beneath the gloss, there’s a tension—something too smooth to trust.
With Pop Girl, Lexie rewrites what power sounds like in the age of hyper-curation: sleek, aching, self-aware. A soundtrack for those who scroll, ache, dissociate—and still choose to show up. “It’s not just for the confident—it’s for the ones faking it too.”

/ Obongjayar
Obongjayar is a post-Afro maximalist and hip-hop multihyphenate, defying octaves and spiritual realms. On Paradise Now, his upcoming album, the genre-bending artist builds a sonic utopia where falsettos ride mechanical bulls and African percussion collides with psychedelic synths. He sings of love, grief, and political frustration with a voice that slips between gravel and silk, backed by gospel hooks, electro-pop gloss, and Parliament-worthy funk.
 
/ Ivy Wolk
A Hollywood disruptor, stand-up savior, DIY cinema evangelist, and the internet’s poster girl for diaristic chaos, Ivy Wolk rips through Oscar validation, autistic survival, a love for Tubi trash cinema, tech-guy exorcisms, and the absurd horror show of being alive online — in conversation with novelist Alex Kazemi. She rewrote Disney Channel in her head, cried to Madonna over a boy who now does incest on TV, and tried to join Raya (but refused to let a tech bro “rape her spirit”). From musical theatre camp to psych ward epiphanies to gastroparesis girlhood, Ivy’s career is a livewire remix: equal parts cringe, comedy, and creative genius. She quotes Courtney Love like scripture and vaporizes haters with monologue-level vindication.

The internet wants to burn her at the stake for her sins — but Ivy’s too busy building the Ivy Cinematic Universe: stand-up specials, memoir drafts, one-woman shows, and hot takes that cut like knives.

/ EKKSTACY
Marked by misery, wrapped in static, and wired with doubt, Ekkstacy sits comfortably in his discomfort. As The Accidental Anti-Hero of his generation, he remains genuine and unforced—existing in a space of detachment and unscripted truth. His music channels raw, unfiltered emotion, with vulnerability at its core. “Keep my head down, keep my head down, when I’m walking,” he says, capturing the essence of his upcoming album, FOREVER. Navigating the messy terrain of self-doubt, mental health, and the struggle to feel connected, FOREVER is set to hit harder and feel truer than ever.

/ PinkPantheress

PinkPantheress lets us peek into her inner monologue—a diary of contradictions, chaos, and quiet truths. Her new mixtape, Fancy That, spirals in the same sweet chaos—diary entries over drum breaks, whispering of desire, detachment, and digital romance. It’s cute. It’s coded. It’s chaos in lowercase. The result is delicate but defiant: a mixtape of emotion, glitch, and girlhood. With every track, she pulls us deeper into her world—where nothing fits neatly. And that’s exactly how she wants it.

/ Polished to Disappear
Polished to Disappear for the Controversy Issue of @kingkongmagazine.

Waiting is a form of control—a quiet violence that bends time and desire. In Waiting for Godot, the savior never comes—because he was never meant to. The waiting is the punishment. Those who wait submit: to another, to the system, to the promise of a possible future. But the longer we wait, the more we bend. What begins as an individual pursuit may dissolve into pure replication. What happens when performance no longer performs? When form forgets the self it was meant to hold? When disappearance becomes precision? This image captures the controversy of suspended time: bodies numbered and displayed, caught between performance and disappearance—all bound by a shared, silent hunger: to be seen, to be validated. Hope weaponized. Patience political. Obedience masked as “just wait.” So we ask: What are you still waiting for? And who profits from your patience?

/ Erika Hilton
Controversy is a machine—a mechanism as old as power itself. It doesn’t just provoke; it controls. It dictates which struggles are “up for debate” and which remain sacred, who deserves rights and who stays on the margins. In this conversation, Erika Hilton confronts the spectacle of controversy head-on, dissecting how moral panic is weaponized to paralyze real change.

Power in Brazil was never meant for someone like Erika Hilton—but she took it anyway. Black, trans, and unapologetically loud, she bulldozed through the country’s political machine with a force that makes history or enemies—often both. To the right, she’s a nightmare. To the left, a symbol of progress. To King Kong, she is controversy incarnate—an icon of resistance draped in elegance, wielding her very existence like a loaded gun. In a country built to erase people like her, Hilton ensures she’s impossible to ignore.

296 pages (24 X 33,3 cm / 9,45 X 13,11 Inches)

Please note that magazine covers cannot be specified at the time of the order. However, you can indicate your preferred cover in the order notes at checkout.

If the cover you prefer is available, we will do our best to send it. If the cover you specify is the only one you are willing to accept, please indicate this clearly in your order notes. Otherwise, we will consider it as a preference and will send a cover based on availability.