You don’t need me to tell you Grand Theft Auto VI comes out Nov. 19. Count me in. Rockstar named the first six stations on Oct. 8, and look at these hosts:
Cocoteo FM, the Latin station, with Bad Bunny and RaiNao as El Martillo and La Gata
Back Country Radio, with Lana Del Rey and Morgan Wallen as Delta Dawne and MW, plus Del Rey’s husband, Jeremy Dufrene, filing swamp reports as Mud Dog Mike
Flash FM, back from Vice City, with Robyn and Alex Consani
Dirty South Classics, with Trick Daddy and Trina
AfroBank FM, with Burna Boy and Palms Trax
The Chamber 106.6, the metal station, with Slayer’s Kerry King and Tom Araya
Rockstar’s also releasing an album of 34 original tracks, with Travis Scott, Keith Richards and Cardi B. It’s out the same day as the game. On vinyl. And CD. The game’s own box comes with a download code instead of a disc.
In GTA, the radio music doesn’t float over the action like a movie score. It comes out of your car stereo, and now out of Jason and Lucia’s phones, too, since they can keep listening to radio on foot through earbuds. Rockstar’s also adding on-demand podcasts for the first time.
Now that the music’s out of the way, let’s get to the real pressing issues. Rockstar has promised stations “from Classic Rock to Talk Radio,” but hasn’t named a talk station yet. That’s the one I’m waiting on.
The talk stations were among the most absurd parts of these games, and some of my favorites. The callers were unhinged and the ads sold products that shouldn’t exist, like Giggle Cream, an allegedly lethal whipped topping with a little too much laughing gas. But those people had lives and grudges that had nothing to do with you. The city kept arguing, whether you were listening or not.
GTA III’s best station didn’t play music. On Chatterbox FM, host Lazlow took calls from people like a mom convinced video games were warping her son’s mind. GTA was roasting its own critics on its own radio.
Vice City went after public radio. Maurice Chavez hosted Pressing Issues on VCPR and called it the top-rated show on public radio in Vice City. He reminded guests the show was “about free speech, not feeding each other hemlock, literally or metaphorically.” John F. Hickory, one of those guests, wanted to dig “a river of freedom” to cut Florida off from the mainland and float it into the Caribbean. “So far, we’ve dug 17 feet,” he said. Congressman Alex Shrub, who Chavez said got elected “because he has great hair,” called gangs “a myth put out by the liberal elite.” A preacher who wanted to launch a statue of himself into space held Chavez at gunpoint.
Chavez wasn’t much better. He broke a motivational speaker’s nose with a paperweight. He used to be Sal the Wheat-Free Clown, until inmates at a juvenile correctional facility set him on fire. He lost a comedy award to Mary the Meat-Free Mime. He didn’t live with his mother. He was “between apartments.” Between segments, his own station managers called him useless while begging listeners for money.
Lazlow and Dan Houser wrote Pressing Issues together, but both left Rockstar in 2020—Houser in March and Lazlow in April. Rockstar hasn’t said who’s writing GTA VI’s talk radio.
Whoever it is has their work cut out for them. At a Tribeca Festival panel, Lazlow said the real world had gotten harder to parody. He brought up GTA V’s Jock Cranley, an ex-stuntman running for governor whose campaign ad has him openly declaring his hatred for immigrants, disabled people, unions, cops and old ladies. When they wrote it, Lazlow recalled, the writers figured nobody would say anything like that in real life. Yeah. Pressing Issues was full of people using a serious debate to promote themselves and yell at each other. Now that’s just called a podcast.
Flash FM made it back from Vice City, and Chavez still has a star on GTA V’s Walk of Fame. So where’s Maurice? Did he ever move out of his mom’s basement? What are Vice City’s Pressing Issues in 2026? I want to know if Maurice is still mad.