A nod to Vibe in our hip-hop age

Vibe editor Emil Wilbekin

A nod to Vibe
in our hip-hop age

Magazine award speaks to a genre's power

By David Moore

   At the National Magazine Awards, there are a few titles that can be counted on to divvy up the top honors from one year to the next.
   Regular occupants of the winners' circle include this year's big winners, The New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly. Vanity Fair and National Geographic are frequent nominees, and it's rare that a newsweekly or business magazine isn't among the finalists.
   Surprises do happen, however. This year's big one came when Vibe, the magazine of hip-hop music and culture, won the award for general excellence in the 500,000-to-1,000,000 circulation range.
   Vibe beat out competitors such as the New Yorker, Wired, and Gourmet--all perennial contenders--to win the award from the American Society of Magazine Editors.
   It is only the second music magazine ever to win the general excellence award, following Rolling Stone's win in 1998.
   More significantly, it's the first time a magazine about urban music--one of the fastest growing magazine genres in the last decade--has won any national magazine award.
   For Vibe editor Emil Wilbekin, the honor is a recognition not just of the magazine's accomplishments but of the prominence that hip-hop--and, by extension, the community of black artists--has achieved in American culture in the past two decades.
   "Hip-hop gives people of color a voice," says Wilbekin, citing the recent Academy Award victories of Denzel Washington and Halle Berry as evidence that urban culture is gaining ground.
   "Vibe is about urban music, but broader than that," he says.
   "Hip-hop is the new rock and roll, the new alternative, but we show how it interacts with the culture as a whole, with movies and fashion and other elements."
   Wilbekin singled out some feature articles from the three issues Vibe submitted for consideration as examples of Vibe's approach to urban music and culture. The September 2001 issue, also known as the "juice issue," listed the 100 most influential people and places in hip-hop. The November issue was a tribute to the singer Aaliyah that "spoke to how we interact with readers and how we reacted to their mourning of Aaliyah."
   The December issue, for which Vibe adorned its logo with the stars and stripes, featured "a profound roundtable discussion with professors and commentators talking about the impact of 9/11 on the urban community and the AIDS epidemic on urban culture."
   Other magazine industry figures say they feel the nine-year-old title, founded by fabled producer Quincy Jones, was due for some recognition.
   "It is an honor that confirms the potential of multicultural media and the undeniable power of urban culture," says Keith Clinkscales, publisher of Savoy magazine and a former CEO of Vibe.
   "I think Vibe's a good magazine," said Bob Guccione Jr., publisher of Gear. Guccione also founded Spin and sold it to the owners of Vibe in 1997.
   "It must've done very well to beat out the New Yorker, which was really spectacular last year," he said. Of the New Yorker, Guccione says, "I guess it's a victim of its own greatness."
   On the new prominence of hip-hop, he says, "It permeates every single pore of pop culture."
   The March issue of Gear was dedicated to hip-hop music and culture, he notes.
   "It's no longer ghetto-ized, both literally and metaphorically."
   Vibe's win had special meaning for Susan L. Taylor. Upon being inducted into ASME's Hall of Fame Wednesday, the Essence editorial director spoke at length on the importance of creating more black-operated media outlets.
   "Vibe has given a strong voice to young urban America," Taylor said. "It is so exciting that the standard of excellence that they've consistently upheld has been acknowledged and rewarded by the magazine industry."
   Vibe's circulation was flat in the second half of 2001 at 800,114, according to Audit Bureau of Circulations. Newsstand sales were down 12.5 percent to 158,451.
   In the same period, circulation for The Source, a competing hip-hop title, was up 2.2 percent to 464,644. Newsstand sales of the Source were flat at 364,515. While smaller, the Source sells more than twice as many copies on the newsstand as Vibe.
   Ad sales for Vibe totaled $14,604,781 in 2002, up 4.2 percent from the year before, according to Publishers Information Bureau.
   Vibe's year-to-date ad pages through March 2002 were down 7.2 percent to 220.1. Ad revenue was up 4.2 percent to $14.6 million.

-David Moore is a staff writer for Media Life.

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