C H A P T E R T W O

A Great Year in Hip Hop

The streets have spoken.

�" D E F J A M R E C O R D S

In 1997 a small but determined group of publishers launched a new

music magazine. They named it XXL with the tagline �śHip Hop on a Higher Level.” Some of the key players involved with the new book

were former staĆł members of The Source, one of the earliest and most successful news and entertainment monthlies dedicated to covering

the vital world hip hop was creating. The Source was the idea of two Harvard students, Jon Shecter and Dave Mays. It began as a one-page

photocopied newsletter that Mays produced for the listeners of a

radio program he created. Though the program was hosted at Har-

vard, most of his listeners were young people from in and around the

Boston area. When they graduated, Shecter and Mays moved to New

York, where they began working to turn the newsletter into a glossy

monthly.

Despite growing up white and relatively comfortable in a Wash-

ington, D.C., suburb, Mays developed a strong connection to the

urban-based youth culture. He cut his teeth on Old School hip hop,

growing fond of the Sugarhill Gang, Kurtis Blow, and Run-D.M.C.

Years later, he would say, �śhip hop made me respect black people.”

The debut issue of The Source was published in 1988. After a bumpy beginning the number of ad pages in the new publication doubled

between 1991 and 1992. While its rate base was substantially lower

than the more established music magazines like Rolling Stone and Spin, The Source earned recognition as the best-selling music maga-

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