Magazine Proposal

Magazine Proposal

The name of my magazine will be $wank as of popular demand in my questionnaire in which I distributed. $wank is a good name for a magazine because it is a rising term in hip-hop but is not extremely mainstream yet and wouldn't look too cheesy. The  dictionary definition of the term 'Swank' is "display one's wealth, knowledge, or achievements in a way that is intended to impress others", which is in perfect relation to hip-hop because most rappers rap about their achievements and boast about their image and how they can afford expensive clothes. The  use of the dollar sign instead of the 'S' is a good addition because it enhances the image of the name and the magazine, because ones wealth is constantly being rapped about in most hip-hop tracks and the simple association can  be made between an dollar sign and hip-hop (see mood board). 

$wank magazine is going to be a hip-hop magazine covering all forms of hip-hop, presenting not only the big names of the genre, but underground artists on their ‘come-up’ which will not only aid the artists as they may gain some publicity from being featured in the magazine, but it will aid the magazine as it will introduce a whole new branch of the hip-hop genre to the hip-hop fans who will be reading the magazine, which will ultimately make the magazine become a source for good hip-hop music to the reader, which is what I want to achieve by releasing this magazine. Due to multiple areas of the genre to be covered in the magazine, the magazine will have multiple sections and a lot of content for the reader. Different sections in this magazine will include interviews with artists, tour dates, bios on artists and album reviews. One feature I would like to include which will separate $wank from other hip-hop magazines such as ‘XXL’ and ‘Vibe’ will be something that has been used before by other magazines, most notably, men’s magazine ‘FHM’ who faced intense competition with male magazine giants ‘nuts_­’ before they began to release an annual list known as the ‘FHM top 100’ which lists the top 100 beautiful women in the world, which not only enticed men but also women as the topic was their gender, then FHM was on a much higher pedigree to other men’s magazines. I too want to construct an annual list of the top 100 rappers as the whole world of hip-hop would be interested as there is currently nothing like that on the market, there is a top ten made by MTV but it only covers artists who are big and currently popular, whereas the $wank top 100 would cover all rappers, and their fan base size will not be a factor.

With regards to my audience, realistically, when making this decision it was quite simple, I had to take the public representation of the genre into account, which is quite negative. Most hip-hop artists came from rough backgrounds and rap heavily about their actions in the past whilst incorporating a lot of bad language which you wouldn’t hear in other genres, meaning the music isn’t usually played on radios and is rather restricted and reaches fans by true hip-hop fans hunting down an artist’s music rather than the music coming to them (over the radio and television). This magazine cannot appeal to the higher class of people as the higher class of people do not like the genre, most of the time, meaning this magazine with appeal to lower and middle class. $wank will appeal to this class as the price of the magazine will not be extremely expensive like the pricy magazines for the upper-class such as fashion magazine ‘Vogue UK’ which costs around £4.10. I would like $wank to appeal to men mainly because if you look at the genre, most rappers are male, and they rap a lot about girls (see mood board) in a very masculine way. Baring this in mind, hip-hop is slowly becoming the largest genre on the market, and a lot of female rappers are breaking through such as Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azelae, and their fans are mainly girls, meaning they are bringing girls to the hip-hop fandom and further showing how some girls will purchase this magazine. Considering hip-hop is a relatively new genre, making its major breakthrough in the late 80s with artists such as Eric B and Rakim becoming the first rappers out, the rappers inside are young, meaning it will be very rare seeing someone 35+ being a hip-hop fan, so I will make my magazine appeal to 17-27 roughly, by having young artists who are the same age as them being presented in the magazine. 

I have previously spoke about the public view on hip-hop and how it is looked upon differently than other genres, I plan to embrace this strange look and make the artists seem like they are quite powerful beings and are able as individuals, which represents the genre as quite an individualist genre, contrasting other genres where they will need a band to make music. The representations of others I will use will be negative to those outside the genre, but inside the genre they will seem positive. If female rappers are covered, the stereotypical female will be challenged as they too will look as powerful as the male rappers because all rappers try to make themselves to be represented as powerful, recent examples of this can be seen in the Kanye West BBC interview where he claims he wants to become a massive clothes designer and an architect and he claimed that he will be as big as Michelangelo, showing the power rappers nowadays believe they have. They are people that can influence millions of people through what they rap, and are idolised, an example of this is was the hologram of the late Tupac which rapped at the Coachella festival and the video of it went viral, showing how influential they can be. $wank will challenge the stereotypical rapper, most hip-hop magazines will show black rappers, only recently there have been only a few white rappers breaking through and making the covers such as Eminem, Mac Miller and Macklemore. I want to include some white rappers on mine so it will appeal to a wider audience and not only the Afro-Caribbean community 

My magazine will be an independent publication rather than part of a publishing group because the content of the magazine could easily make 3 or more full magazines if separated, so it would be easier if it was in a lone publication. The main competition with our magazine would be regards to the relevance in rap music, would be ‘XXL’ because ‘XXL’ is regarded as the premier hip-hop magazine and it has been referenced in many songs, most notably J.Cole and Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Forbidden Fruit’ where J.Cole says how hard you have to work just to get on the cover of the ‘XXL’. But with regards to versatility in the genre and the surrounding genres, the other main competitor is definitely ‘Vibe’ because ‘Vibe’ covers not only hip-hop but occasionally R&B and even pop once, meaning their audience is a lot larger than other hip-hop magazines. I would like my magazine to be sold firstly at all newsagents and major supermarkets, which would place it on the same level as all magazines and newspapers, I would then like to stretch the distribution levels further and sell it in all major music stores such as HMV and Play.com, as I want it to make the readers be extremely engrossed in it and rely on it for all information regarding their favourite genre, hip-hop.