They don't teach this at Harvard

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, May 1, 1991 by Cary Peyton Rich

NEW YORK CITY- If you were to picture the editor and the publisher of the most popular rap music magazine-a magazine that speaks to a young, counter-culture, underground, mostly black audience, they wouldn't look anything like these guys. Sure, they're young, but they're white, Harvard-educated, and you'd think that they're about as far from the ghetto as collard greens are from Boston lettuce.

But man, can they spot a trend when they see one.

The Source is the brainchild of two 22-year-otds, publisher David Mays and editor in chief John Shecter. It's gone from a free, one-page Xeroxed newsletter in August 1988 to a four-color, 68-page monthly with national distribution. Their offices may look like a dorm room, but their magazine is a far cry from those college start-ups that have a short life. It carries advertising from such major record labels as MCA, Polygram, Elektra and Virgin, all sold by mays.

Publishing The Source-which covers hip-hop music, culture and Politics-has served as something of a Post-graduate education for the pair, a sort of MBA on the run. "Harvard [undergraduate] only offers liberal arts," says Shecter, who met Mays when both were undergrads in Cambridge. "They didn't offer any journalism courses," he says. "Or business or publishing," adds mays. We felt our way through it. A lot of it is just common sense. We're still learning. Each issue took a significant step fOrward. we never had any money come in. But the concept was so clearly in demand."

"Needed," Shecter interjects.

"The other rap magazines are all pictures," Mays continues. "People don't 'read' them. The Source is something people read. They love it. "

Others vouch for the respect the magazine garners in the music industry and the black community, where rap finds its roots. Bob Guccione Jr., publisher of Spin magazine, calls The Source "an invaluable resource of views and information on a phenomenon that is still under-documented." Others have called it "the rap bible."

Networking the Hip-Hop Nation

"Rap is now an official form of music, " Shecter says, clearly warming up to talk about his favorite subject. "It's dominating the pop charts, the black charts. It's not going to go anywhere. It's not like disco. " Rap, he explains, refers to the music; hip-hop encompasses the music, clothes, politics and culture.

Hip-hop being so much broader in scope than just music, it could attract advertisers outside the music biz. While 95 percent of the current ads have been for record companies, Mays is targeting other companies that produce anything used in the hip-hop culture: baseball hats, Jeans, personal stereos, car stereo systems. Whether liquor and automobile categories will be pursued is still undecided. The Source is branching out editorially from rap music. The May issue, for example, features a big story on kicks sneakers, for those not in the know) and a small piece on cool clothes. It won't be long before some adventurous advertisers look at The Source's ad rate base of 29,000 v-e-e-e-r-y hip kids.

Shecter and Mays have been hot on the trail of hip-hop for years. They first teamed up in 1986 as the freshman hosts of "Street Beat," an all-hip-hop radio show on Harvard's VMRB. Mays sold ad time on the station and also promoted Boston-area rap concerts. Proving that he could operate in at least three media at once, he got his first mailing list for The Source from a list of his radio fans.

Shecter cut his teeth in the music business as a high school intern at radio station WUSL-FM in Philadelphia. Mays grew up in Washington, D.C. While they operate out of New York, they want The Source to appeal to kids in other areas, what is referred to as the Hip-Hop Nation. To cover the scene in cities and colleges around the country, Shecter has developed a network of writers-whose names run the gamut from Shockmaster Glen Boyd and MC Chill to Ben Smith and Jeff Woods.

Reaching hardcore rap fans

A more important network developed by Mays is in distribution. Up to now, the primary channel for sales has been through record stores. Although 55,000 copies of The Source are now distributed to newsstands through Kable News Company, the record stores are the cornerstone of the book's success. "That's still the basis of our distribution. We have 300 accounts-mostly Mom-and-Pop, independent stores."

But big chains like Tower Records and Wherehouse Entertainment also carry The Source. Through this network, the title reaches the hardcore, devoted rap fans who visit their local record stores every week. More important, The Source is often the only magazine in the store. "It's a totally untapped market, " Mays maintains. With the newsstand circulation, the magazine expects monthly paid circulation to be approximately 50,000. Only 2,000 copies circulate via subscription.

Sometime competitors include Right On and Black Beat on one hand and Spin and Rolling Stone on the other. Closest in spirit to Spin, there are differences, Mays admits. "Spin is more white, suburban, middle class. The teen magazines have mostly black, teen audiences. We have a much broader readership. Our readers range from urban, inner city to suburban, both black and white." The demographics of the readers--young, male, evenly divided between blacks and whites-mirror the composition of the staff, all of whom are under 25.