Hip Hop Mag, Where Art Thou?

Hello, my name is Hip Hop. I have the ability to reach out and touch millions over sixteen bars. Rhythm and Blues is my sister, my Poppa was a rolling stone and his name was Rock. I like to hang out with my friend call Jazz and her sister named Funk.
I sell shoes, clothes, liquor and cars. I can generate billions of dollars and I am o about thirty years old. I started the careers of Run DMC, KRS-One and Jay-Z; even Kanye West owes me a favor. I was born in New York, and recently moved to Canada.

Back home in the US there are so many magazines dedicated to my work, where fans could get to know about me, and read about those who follow me. In Canada, I can barely find magazines like that, I wonder where they are?

“There was a situation with the Business Development Bank of Canada, where we applied for a loan and the loan officer in charge basically said, ‘We’ve decided not to approve your loan application because some of the articles and advertisements’ are quote, ‘too gangster’,” says Christian Pearce, co-found and editor-in-chief of Pound Magazine.
But, Pearce and Pound publisher and co-founder, Rodrigo Bascuan didn’t allow the small roadblock to derail their plans of a magazine.

“That kinds of shows you the mentality of the people you’re dealing with when you approach the Canadian institutions with something like this and the kinds of obstacles you face with people having their preconceived misconceptions about hip hop,” says Pearce.
Let’s keep looking for these magazines.

Since the banks don't want to facilitate hip hop, its better assume a Do It Yourself mentality.
Enter Scarborough natives Priya Ramanujam and Adrian McKenzie. Together the two friends armed with a little bit of money and a lot of drive, launched their hip hop magazine, Urbanology.
“If you think about it, a lot of urban people, from all different ethnicities, live in Canada. They’re like first or second generation from a different country in the world. In the States, urban people have been living there for a long, long time. [Americans] have had years and years of people trying to make it. So [Canada] is almost at the starting point of that, because we just have two generations of people that are trying: Us and the people that are slightly older than us,” says Ramanujam.

The urban scene has established itself in the U.S, but here in Canada the industry is malnourished and underdeveloped.

“There’s a lot more money and a lot more belief in terms of that industry, [in the US] and there’s a lot more people that represent the urban community, there are people that are in higher positions that know how to market to the urban youth,” says Adrian. “The higher up companies [in Canada] aren’t taking chances.”

I was conceived when Brooklyn DJ Kool Herc began spitting lyrics on breaks back in the 70s. At the time, no one would have ever prophesized, or fathom, my great success.
Hip hop is a culture. Hip hop is a movement.

“In believing in urban culture, companies in Canada are way slower to get on that board. They’re not willing to really see the influence, the power of urban culture. They’re failing to understand the power of the magazine, the power of their marketing messages through it. Unfortunately, we still battle funding, money; all that kind of stuff is still a struggle,” Ramanujam says.
“The urban scene in Canada doesn’t have much money to begin with. A magazine like double XXL or the Source has a lot of corporate infrastructure as far as financial backing and advertising,” says founder of hiphopcanda.com, Jesse Plunkett. “Its much harder to secure advertising in general.”

During my stay in Canada I met artist such as Maestro Fresh Wes, Ghetto Concept, Michie Mee and Kardinal Official. Despite all the talent, Canadian hip hop artists are having a tough time getting their names in print.

J Robb, a Toronto rapper in the industry for a little over ten years, believes that as an artist, having magazines as an outlet to reach fans is indispensable.
“When it comes to the outlets, you have the media outlets like TV, radio and magazines; most of us don’t get TV and some of us don’t get radio and there’s a lot of print that comes out of the city. So [magazines are] real important, when it comes down to it. People are buying the magazines like the XXL and the Source, but they’re not seeing any Canadian music in it, so they won’t take it seriously,” Robb says.

I also met my home girl Samantha Wong, a Canadian hip hop writer, who writes for publications on both sides of the border, suggests there may be another reason for the lack of hip hop magazines.

“Look at the market and consumer; we don’t have enough consumers to go out and buy those magazines. It’s not smart that we don’t have enough, its just that we don’t have enough material to make it quality. The thing is [in the US] they have enough material to write on, we don’t have as many events as they do, we don’t have listening parties launches, we don’t have those kinds of things to constantly write about,” declares Wong.
I'm Hip Hop and that's my quest to find urban magazines in Canada.