The Emerging Standard

Slowly but surely XXL has overtaken The Source as the premier Hip-Hop publication. Emphasising quality over quantitiy XXL has more articles and less ads. I'm not sure how this effects there bottom line but it makes for an infintely more enjoyable magazine. I also think there reating system is more accurate than the Source (Made Men, Sillk The Shocker 4.5 Mics) any who they're far from perfect but they're making strides in the right direction. P.s. The Eye Candy of the year pasha is worth a subscription alone.

People are so quick to hop on the bandwagon

I know you're already dying to give me an unhelpful vote because you think I'm hating but please read the review first and listen to my insight.

Yes, yes, we all know that The Source Magazine has gone to crap since Benzino began to exert his influence on it. I haven't bought an issue of that mag since 2001. When the Source went to crap a lot of people turned to XXL. Admit, most of you turned to this magazine after Eminem's lashing out against the Source. Ironically, he himself was dissing this magazine back in 2000 on "I'm Just Marshall Mathers". Now for a while I turned to XXL as well. Around late 2003 XXL began to disappoint me. Let me tell you why.

By now it's no secret that XXL is boosting up Shady/Aftermath artists in their magazine in return for the increased sales that Eminem has brought them. When the Source became biased I turned to XXL because I thought that it was the closest thing to a fair and balanced magazine that hip-hop had left. Well, they've proven me wrong. XXL has had Shady/Aftermath artists on 4 of their last 6 covers. If that isn't bias then I don't know what is. Not only that, they proceeded to call Eminem the best rapper living on one of their covers. Now I love Eminem but I know, XXL knows, Eminem knows, and anyone who started listening to hip-hop before 1999 knows he isn't the best artist alive. That's blatant disrespect to the several artists who have recorded classic material in the past like Rakim, Kane, Nas, KRS, Jay-Z, and Outkast. Come on now XXL, you know you were wrong right there. Not only that, they worked with MTV2 and brought a list of the top 22 mcs of all time. If you've seen that list then you know it was a joke. If I remember correctly they put Eminem in the top 5. I love Em but he's not a top 5 mc XXL. Top 5 of right now? Yes, of all time? Hell no.

Well it seems like our acclaimed magazines couldn't resist taking sides in this XXL/Aftermath vs. Source-Benzino/Murder Inc. war. It's just a sad occurance. It's a true reflection of the times. Not only has the quality of hip-hop music been drastically lowered but now our magazines are in dire straits as well. Hopefully one of them will get their ish together for the sake of the readers and forget about this pointless label war.

Subscribe at your own risk!

The content of this magazine is equal to any other contemporary hip-hop mag. But, I didn't receive all my issues. I got about 8 out of 12. That's just not cool.