Researching hip hop magazines

In the first research which I have performed I have mainly focused on pop and dance music magazines which in the first place did not provide me with enough information for me to create a successful magazine which focus is on hip hop music. Based on my survey research I have come up with the first draft of my magazine which can be seen below.

I have requested feedback from my class mates in order to see how well the front cover represented the hip hop genre, and the feedback which I have gained was rather negative. By this I have considered to look more into the codes and conventions of hip hop music magazines to make my cover more appealing to the genre.

As we can see above I have found a very good example of a hip hop magazine. The 'VIBE' magazine which I have chosen shows a very similar image which I have chosen. Both of the models wear a beanie hat, which to me shows that I have properly chose the needed props. As of this similarity between the magazines I have chosen this magazine as a guide for my own magazine creation. For me to additionally reassure with the codes and conventions of hip hop music magazines I have chosen to perform extra research which included me looking at various hip hop magazine front covers as we can see below.

In the magazines above we can see the typical hip hop magazine front covers. Looking at the wide range of magazines and images I have found very useful codes and conventions which I can apply into my own music magazine in order to tailor it better to the chosen genre. First of all I have noticed that on hip hop music magazines we can see that depending on the magazine brand, the masthead is either partially covered by the main image or placed over the main image. I have already found this code and convention in my pop music magazine research and implemented it into my first draft. I will keep the masthead covered by the main image same as the "VIBE" magazine has with Eminem on it. Looking further on, we can mainly see dark skinned individuals such as Jay-Z or Snoop Dogg appearing on hip hop music magazines. The dark skinned characters mainly wear a 'full cap' hat which can be considered as a phallic symbol. On the other hand, on some of the magazines we can see a lighter skinned character such as Eminem, however in this case he is wearing a beanie hat. This shows the difference between how the different ethnic cultures are shown. In my magazine I have included a female model of a lighter skin colour which is wearing a beanie hat therefore I would consider this a good feature as it makes my front cover match the codes and conventions in terms of the photograph. Furthermore, looking at the wide range of front covers I have noticed that they contain the front image in colour. This contradicts with my front cover as I have placed a image in black and white. The black & white effect has been used intentionally, however in order to make my magazine match the codes and conventions I will take this into account and amend this error. A factor which I have additionally picked up which really stands out in the front covers of the magazines is the use of red colour. Large number of magazines use red to either underline a headline or the name of the artist. In my magazine I have not used red at all therefore this can be a improvement which I can implement into my magazine. Last of all looking at my front cover and comparing it to what I can see from the above search, I noticed that I haven't mentioned the name of the artist which can be visible in the main image. This is a really big downside as by this I do not catch the audiences attention because they cannot see who the artist in the image is. Furthermore, in terms of the magazines containing the name of the artist I have found that the name is either placed towards the bottom left or bottom centre of the page. I could consider this a really stereotypical placement of the text as it is mainly seen in hip hop magazines. In order to prove this point I have looked at POP music magazines front cover (as we can see below). The placement of the artists name is placed either on top left or middle right which is very different than on hip hop magazines.

From this task I have came up with a conclusion that I need to complete these steps:

• Edit the main image and reverse it into colour rather than black & white
• Insert the artists name on the front cover in order to give a meaning to the main image
• Use red either to underline the name of the artist or the headlines on the front cover