Hip Hop Music Magazine ResearchAyotunde Adetoye

Full Magazine

This image shows the masthead and strapline of the magazine. The strapline shows the association of this magazine with another which is the ‘XXL’ magazines. This will draw in fans of the ‘XXL’ magazines instantly which is a good marketing scheme. ‘XXL’ is undoubtedly one of the biggest hip hop magazines in the USA, so the promotion/link between ‘Scratch’ and ‘XXL’ will definitely make an effect on sales. The strapline also advertises a competition as it says ‘Dipset Wants Your Beats’ . This will bring in the audience of up and coming music producers and music makers as it gives them a chance to showcase there work. From here it’s clear the audience is hip-hop fans as ‘Dipset’ is an American hip hop group. The masthead uses the colour yellow with a slight black stroke around it; with also a slight inner glow used. It stretches across the whole top of the magazine horizontally and is the largest piece of text on the whole magazine which makes it clear that it’s the masthead. The colour yellow is bright and eye catching, which is contrasted with the black stroke. However the contrast also is contrasted with the inner glow. This makes the masthead a lot more interesting than what it would be if it was just text with no effects. The choice of the sans serif fonts for the masthead works as it shows that the magazine is not too formal which links in with the hip hop aspect. If the magazine was more serious, it would probably use a serif font.

This is the main image of the magazine. The image shows hip hop star ‘Lil Wayne’ holding a microphone and slanting with a frown. Not taking into consideration who Lil Wayne is, it clearly shows the genre of the magazine straight away as it shows the character holding a microphone which is a prop that shows the link to music. The clothing of the character also makes the genre even more clear. The character is wearing a hoodie, ‘New era’ cap and a t-shirt with many pieces of expensive jewellery on his neck. The urban look of the image links to the hip-hop genre immediately as he is wearing dark colours which are usually associated with the hip hop genre.

These features are all representations of the hip hop genre, so it is effective that the magazine chose to use these features on their front cover as it is now clear who the audience of the magazine is. Moreover it is a good way to show the audience what the genre of the magazine is instead of telling them bluntly. The characters hoodie is also very close shade to the background of the magazine making the rest of the characters clothes (t-shirt and cap) stand out, so it doesn’t all just blend. The hoodie being this shade however also makes sure that the character doesn’t stand out too much, he is wearing dark and light colours so he doesn’t look out of place on the cover.

The sub image shows hip hop entrepreneur ‘DJ Khaled’ part owner of def. jam records and Atlantic records. Excusing who ‘DJ Khaled’ is, the image shows many representations of what modern day hip hop is. Firstly the character in the image is using a mixing board which is a prop. The effect of this prop is that it allows the audience to automatically know what the magazines genre is, which is music. The hip hop aspect is then shown through the characters clothing and accessories. Like the main image, this character is wearing a lot of jewellery which is to showcase his wealth in a braggadocios manner. A lot of hip hop music includes rappers or singers talking about their wealthy, privileged lifestyle, which explains why they dress in such a manner. This image also contrasts with the main image has this character is wearing light clothing while the character in the main image is wearing dark colours which makes sure the cover doesn’t look too dark and that the sub image is clear to see. Also notice how the character is slightly bent at his back/knees to show his enjoyment with the mixing board; which makes sure the magazine too looks exciting, as if he was standing straight with a straight facial expression it would look boring and uninteresting.

This is the main cover line on the magazine cover. Three fonts have been used when creating this cover line, the first being a bold, sans-serif type font; and the second being a textured serif type font. The largest font is white, the 2nd largest is light blue and the smallest is yellow which keeps the ‘blue and yellow’ colour scheme the magazine is using. The 3 pieces of text get smaller in size depending on the importance of the text, the text representing the main image is the largest, the text representing the sub image is the 2nd largest, and the text describing both images is the smallest. The smallest text uses a different font which is a way of differentiating it from the other fonts without making it too small. It’s also the only text which is yellow apart from the masthead which highlights that this is the main cover line. There’s also a slight stroke around the white text and the blue text which makes the text stand out more than any other text.

These are the other cover lines of the magazine. They all keep the blue and white colour scheme of the magazine, using a larger bold font for the main part of the cover line and using a normal sans-serif type font for the description. The cover lines to the right only say names which tells the audience who will be featured in this magazine. This means fans of these artists will be automatically drawn into buying the magazine (but it doesn’t guarantee the sale). The colours alternate which makes sure it doesn’t look cluttered, which makes it better for the human eyes.

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