Located at the bottom of the Sunshine State, it’s as if everything good and bad about Florida filters its way down to Miami: You get the great weather, all kinds of different cultures, languages, and cuisine, but you also have the tourists, the terrible drivers, and the sports fans that the media loves to take swings at. The city has always been a strange mix of glamours, seedy, and a little dangerous, with the latter two thanks largely to its reputation as the cocaine capital of the United States in the 1980s.

Today, the Magic City is again flush in (now mostly questionable real estate) money, and is still known for its Art Deco buildings, beaches, swirls of Spanish everywhere you go, and parties that go well into the next morning. But Miami is also currently experiencing a cultural boom, something that is especially apparent in December, when Art Basel Miami draws the focus of the entire art world in the biggest event of its kind in the United States. It has also encouraged the opening of dozens of art galleries in the city in the past decade, proving that Miami is simply a place where you go to get a good tan; that there’s plenty to experience here. And somewhat unlikely, one of the ambassadors for Miami’s new renaissance isn’t some native art world darling; it’s Iggy Pop.

On paper he’s another retirement-age ex-Midwesterner who’s pushing 70, never seen wearing a shirt, and soaking up the South Florida sun. Yet this is Iggy Pop we’re talking about — he’s one of the greatest lead singers in rock and roll history, constantly referred to as ‘the godfather of punk,’ and a man who can tell you stories you probably wouldn’t believe if anybody else told them to you.