Magazine Proposal

Target Audience
The primary audience for my magazine will be rap fans. This is the most obvious of all the different
audiences as the magazine focuses on rap as the only genre, meaning that existing hip hop fans would look
at my magazine as an item of interest and certainly something worth buying. As rap is such a broad genre
in terms of the different types that people can listen to and enjoy, the primary audience itself will be quite a
broad range in terms of age. Older people who grew up with the early hip hop from the 70’s to the 90’s will
find plenty to enjoy about my magazine, while younger readers from groups such as Generation Z and
Millenials will find plenty of stories and articles about the current trending topics and the breakthrough
artists to watch out for. I have decided for my magazine to focus on as many eras of the genre as possible
to attract the widest possible audience, as more copies will be sold to different people with different
interests. Rap fans are diverse now to a point where anyone can find some sort of enjoyment in the genre.
While rap/hip hop was never a black-only genre of music for people to both listen to and musically be a
part of, it was born in a section of New York dominated by African-Americans and the early artists that
helped to pioneer the genre were mostly black, with the exception of acts like the Beastie Boys and
producers like Rick Rubin. Nowadays rap has moved to being a lot more open to people from different
cultures and races to contribute, and it is not out of place to see white, hispanic and asian rappers
dominating the charts both critically and commercially.
Target Audience
Secondary- My secondary target audience will be a group of people who
take an interest in some aspects of politics, particularly revolving
around black culture. Police brutality towards blacks in America and
hate crimes around the world are topics of interest for these people,
and these might be the same people who sign up for movements such
as Black Lives Matter and act extremely negatively towards the
presidency of Trump. While anyone can have these opinions, as many
people do, I would imagine this group to be towards the lower end of
the socio-economic scale- blue collar workers, manual workers, and
students, who have extremely strong feelings towards the racial tension
surrounding America and the rap game of today and who want to stand
up and make a change.
Target Audience
Tertiary- As a more refined version of my secondary audience, my tertiary target audience
would be younger people who stand with the Democrat party in America. As time moves
forwards young people’s opinions matter more than ever, with certain things in society
experiencing a form of change due to the efforts of the younger voices who demand to see a
change to the world that they still have to grow up in. An example of this are the protests
surrounding the ever controversial gun laws in America today; with the steady flow of school
shootings disrupting children’s education and enhancing the fear of being in a place where
kids should feel the most safe, some young people have decided that enough is enough and
have taken to the NRA to voice their frustrations about nothing being done, all to defend a
billion dollar industry from being damaged. These people may have equally strong opinions
about the way that blacks are treated in America, and it would be a goal of mine to target
them and involve them with the stories that are published as part of my magazine.
Content
My magazine will be a music mag in the vein of other magazines like NME and Melody Maker, with a slight
difference. While these two examples of popular music magazines try and keep in touch with any important
musical development and in general cover a broad range of music, mine will focus entirely on rap music as
a genre and culture that people follow.
Rap music recently overtook rock as the single most popular genre of music in the United States, and is the
first time that something other than rock has been the most popular in the US for nearly 40 years when
rock was in its heyday. It could not be a better time to dedicate a magazine to focus entirely on rap as a
singular genre, and my magazine will devote its space equally to the history of rap by looking at older
rappers and rap groups and the trends back during the birth of the genre, and the new trends of today that
have carried rap into the spotlight.
By focusing on one specific genre for my magazine, some positives and negatives quickly make themselves
known. I have already limited the competition down as there are only a few rap-only magazines in
circulation today, the most popular being The Source and XXL. A downside to being a rap-only magazine is
that I have also severely limited my target audience; while newcomers to the genre may be inclined to
purchase a copy, the magazine will mostly appeal to those who already followed the genre, be it old hip-
hop heads or millenials or younger who follow the new school of rap.
Draft Article
For the article included in my magazine, I wanted it to encompass everything my magazine stands for-
looking back at the past generations of hip hop and appreciating them. This means references to hip hop
groups of the past- I have made sure to reference NWA and Public Enemy as two prime examples of figures
of the Golden Age of Hip Hop. I have also made reference to the modern hip hop scene and how it
differentiates from the past, with SoundCloud rap as the focal point. I have mentioned the rappers Lil Pump
and the recently deceased XXXTentacion as I feel like they are at the forefront of this scene; even though
the latter artist is dead he is still making waves with his music.
Pictures
The pictures used were taken in an attempt to replicate the recent song and, more
specifically, the accompanying music video by Childish Gambino; This Is America. It offers
such a unique perspective on the current state of politics, race issues, gun violence and hip
hop as a culture in America that I thought it would be a great focal point to base my
magazine around. The photos in the shoot, featuring Eimar with a guitar in his hand, is
reminiscent of certain shots in the music video, which in turn were used to represent African
culture, and perhaps how prevalent it is in America right now. A reason for this might be
due to the rise of rap music over the past few years and how it currently dominates the
music charts featuring artists from all over the world, while in the past it was specifically an
African American genre of music.
Banners
My banners were kept as minimal as possible for a few reasons- I felt as though too much
information would clutter up the page, making it unprofessional. I also didn’t really see the
need to include much more than the necessities of what needs to be on a magazine banner-
the issue number was present as well as the date the magazine was issued, simply as they
are magazine staples and are included on pretty much any mainstream magazine you would
find in the shops.

The colour of my banner was kept black for both my front cover and my double page
spread. This was done for a few reasons; the background for both my images was left
largely untouched in terms of colour, leaving them both grey. The black banner didn’t clash
with this and overall creates a muted colour palette. As for the text, for the front cover I
tried to match it as closely as I could with the colour of the guitar and cigarette filter, as
they are the only two pieces of colour on the image. Matching the colours as closely as
possible helps add to the professional feel I am going for.
Similar Products
Diverse magazine takes a lot of inspiration from the other rap magazines that
dominate the very specific scene. While most of these examples are very
commercial in their approach, championing the modern artist and focusing on the
‘gossip’ side of hip hop news, talking about the private lives of the rappers
featured in the issues. The Source magazine is different- it has a much broader
range of rap documentation in terms of the era of the music, and tends to lean
more towards politics in terms of its news stories.
Fonts
I went with a variety of fonts for both my front cover and double page spread, but kept it
consistent through both so the magazine doesn’t become an eyesore. For the fonts of all the
straplines, headings etc, and the masthead, I wanted all the fonts to be in a block-letter
style, rather than cursive etc. This was done in an attempt to emulate other rap magazines
such as XXL and The Source; when looking at their front covers, I noticed that the majority
of the text on there, most notably the mastheads and straplines, were always in block-style
text, probably due to the nature of the magazine and the content it includes, as a more
fancy style of font would not have worked as well.

My double page spread features the same general aesthetic- for the headlines I went for a
bold blocky font, this time choosing Impact for the headline and the pull quote. As for the
rest of the text I chose Minion Pro. Any font like it would do, I just needed something simple
for the actual text for the double page spread.
Masthead
I would like the name of the magazine to be something musically related yet inclined more
towards the rap genre- something involving a microphone as that is an essential part of rap,
especially the rap form of freestyling. Another name possibility is ‘Diversity’- as rap has
grown from being an exclusively black-dominated genre of music to being something that
everyone can be a part of, it is important to document such an important change outright,
and what better way to do this than have it as the magazines name that will feature on
every front cover.