Along the way, as the music grew more and more pervasive, its influence had started to become evident in multiple cultural arenas.” Vibe Magazine was a blatant attempt by Jones and publisher Len Burnett to trade on hip-hop’s increasing commercial and cultural influence. The galvanizing of that audience was set in motion years earlier when MTV embraced rap music in the form of Yo MTV Raps-an embrace that was made possible, in large part, due to the efforts of Michael Jackson, CBS Records head Walter Yentikoff and Vibe founder Quincy Jones to force MTV to open up its playlists to Jackson, and by extension, other popular black recording artists in the early 1980s.Īs scholar Todd Boyd recently opined : “In the early ‘90s, hip-hop had made the successful transition from Sedgwick and Cedar through Compton on its way to global dominance. Vibe Magazine was launched just as rap music and hip-hop culture were gaining mainstream credibility in terms of delivering a substantial buying audience to advertisers. As such the death of Vibe Magazine raises questions about the future of popular criticism at a moment when few print or on-line journals see the value of paying for such content. The lists of writers who can claim a Vibe Magazine by-line represent the cutting edge of a critical intelligentsia, many of them black writers who would have had few other legitimate options to hone their craft. Presenting a glossy and urbane view of urban culture, Vibe Magazine became a preeminent site for journalists and scholars chronicling contemporary black popular culture. Though Jackson’s career was on the downside in the United States when Vibe Magazine published its first issue in September of 1993, the magazine was the product of a cultural landscape that Jackson had a large hand in crafting. T here’s no small irony to the fact that the announcement of the folding of Vibe Magazine occurred the day after the death of Michael Jackson. Editor's Note: Vibe Magazine is now under new management and the print version is due for a relaunch.
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