XXL Magazine

Before i learned about Drum & Bass, listened to a lot of Rap & Hip-Hop. The first rappers i listened to when i was younger were Eminem and 50 Cent (50 Cent remains to this day one of my favourite music artists ever). In time i started to listen to others such as Jay-Z, Kanye West, Young Jeezy and Akon, and i really got into it.

Rapping is the father of MCing, MCing is just much faster and primarily British. Most of the older MCs in Drum & Bass rap, but the newest ones are primarily the styles shown by MCs such as Skibadee. In addition, the music in Rap is mostly slow and simple, whereas Drum & Bass is very high energy. Rap has been going a lot longer than Drum & Bass, so there are a lot more magazines to find and analyse, the most prominent of which being XXL.

XXL magazine was founded in 1997 by a writer from another magazine, who thought that Rap & Hip-Hop was being ignored by the magazine indusrty, and wanted to try his luck with it. It proved majorly sucessful, and stars many of the biggest rappers in the buisiness. In addition, the front covers are mostly full of meaning, and are a lot more open to analysis than that seen on ATM magazine.