HHC (Hip Hop Connection) is the UK's biggest Hip Hop Magazine, it's been going since the late eighties, gets the plug on all the big artists, and has been name checked in the past by Chuck D of Public Enemy and De La Soul as their favourite Hip Hop magazine.
I used to read that shit a lot in the nineties but they never really said too much about the Bay so I stopped. They been dippin back into Bay music recently and this month their new issue has an EIGHT page feature on the Bay. Four spreads, including interviews with Balance, 40, Turf Talk and Zion I.
It includes a 4 page article covering the History of the Bay (including props for Dre, YBB, JT and RBL) and discussing how far the Hyphy movement can go. It even speaks on the merchandising and the Mac Dre bobblehead dolls. It's major exposure, though as always a few details are un-informed ("3x Crazy")
If I can get to a scanner this week I will reproduce the whole thing because it's worth y'all seeing just for it being eight pages deep, though I do know the kinda fruity bubblegum color scheme they used for the piece is going to annoy some cats, its kinda sending the wrong impression about the Bay lol.
But otherwise it's big exposure in a magazine that has a lot of underground and independent love but predominantly caters to commercial and East Coast cats - the kind of don't-knows who can help the Bay breakout to a far wider audience. The same issue has 40/Keak/Turf - Muscle Cars in their charts.
And oh yeah... they reviewed Jacka - Jack Artist in their album section (since the last 40 album they been reviewing other popular recent Bay CD's). They were feelin that joint as much as the rest of us, they made it a future classic ("low-key gem destined to be un-earted to wider acclaim in future years")
Hopefully it's about to get picked up by x000 new cats as it was their highest scoring album in their reviews (outscoring Krs-One, Ice Cube, Cam'ron and a bunch of other independent CD's) and they said good things about Jacka and about the production qualities.
Damn... this magazine really finally gave it up to the Bay.
I used to read that shit a lot in the nineties but they never really said too much about the Bay so I stopped. They been dippin back into Bay music recently and this month their new issue has an EIGHT page feature on the Bay. Four spreads, including interviews with Balance, 40, Turf Talk and Zion I.
It includes a 4 page article covering the History of the Bay (including props for Dre, YBB, JT and RBL) and discussing how far the Hyphy movement can go. It even speaks on the merchandising and the Mac Dre bobblehead dolls. It's major exposure, though as always a few details are un-informed ("3x Crazy")
If I can get to a scanner this week I will reproduce the whole thing because it's worth y'all seeing just for it being eight pages deep, though I do know the kinda fruity bubblegum color scheme they used for the piece is going to annoy some cats, its kinda sending the wrong impression about the Bay lol.
But otherwise it's big exposure in a magazine that has a lot of underground and independent love but predominantly caters to commercial and East Coast cats - the kind of don't-knows who can help the Bay breakout to a far wider audience. The same issue has 40/Keak/Turf - Muscle Cars in their charts.
And oh yeah... they reviewed Jacka - Jack Artist in their album section (since the last 40 album they been reviewing other popular recent Bay CD's). They were feelin that joint as much as the rest of us, they made it a future classic ("low-key gem destined to be un-earted to wider acclaim in future years")
Hopefully it's about to get picked up by x000 new cats as it was their highest scoring album in their reviews (outscoring Krs-One, Ice Cube, Cam'ron and a bunch of other independent CD's) and they said good things about Jacka and about the production qualities.
Damn... this magazine really finally gave it up to the Bay.