This is hella long but well worth the read...
Many of you may have been too young to remember the days when The Source truly was the bible of hip-hop, I look at those days as fondly for the magazine as I do the music. Reginald C. Dennis was the music editor in those days; those days when Dre didn’t get 5 mics for The Chronic; those days when Nas did get 5 for Illmatic; those days when you didn’t need to be a multi-platinum rapper to get coverage. In his four years at The Source Reginald saw the magazine go from the bottom to the top, but left after Dave Mays and Ray Benzino created an environment that could not be tolerated. For the first time in the 11 years since he left the magazine, Reginald C. Dennis tells all the tales. “Everything you are about to read is something that I’ve seen heard or know. It’s all opinion, of course, but as you’ll see, my positions are highly informed. You can hate it or love it.”
“Growing up in Harlem during the 70s, I pretty much had a ringside seat to the birth of hip-hop. I lived in the Polo Grounds Projects, right across the street from Rucker Park and spent a lot of my childhood doing what I could to participate in the ongoing cultural narrative that was everyday Harlem life. By 1979 I was already well versed in the areas of emceeing and graffiti, but it was “Rapper’s Delight” that pretty much galvanized my generation and inspired me to step up my participation. I got my hands on every mixtape that I could beg, borrow or steal: Grandmaster Caz, Theodore, Busy Bee – I couldn’t get enough.” Like many in the early generation of hip-hop, Reginald found his place within the culture, “I was always pretty nice in my art classes and was an avid collector of comic books, so when the graffiti bug finally bit I knew that I’d found my place. From 1980 to 1984 my entire life revolved around graffiti.” With his complete obsession with hip-hop culture he enrolled in Rutgers University and double majored in English and Africana studies. Things changed for him at Rutgers, “I got involved with campus politics and in the spirit of various anti-Apartheid movements I became quite militant and spent a lot of time being angry at the world. Back home in Harlem, many of my friends started getting caught up in the streets. Crack, guns and fast money was what it was all about and we all wondered what, if anything, we were going to do with our lives.”
In 1988 he discovered a record store called Varsity Records, owned and operated by a man named Bill Moss. It was there he discovered a whole new side of hip-hop, “I began uncovering hundreds of rap records that I had never heard of. Too Short, NWA, The Ghetto Boys, 2 Live Crew – I didn’t know who these people were, but once I started listening I couldn’t get enough.” One day Bill handed him a magazine that he had received in the mail, and asked him to read it over to see if it was worth stocking. That magazine was The Source, and according to Reginald, “I am not exaggerating when I say that in that moment the course of my life was forever altered. This was the first time that a magazine ever spoke to me in a meaningful way. I had read a lot of good writing on hip-hop – I was always looking through the Village Voice and Spin – and sometimes even Word Up and Fresh – but The Source was the only place where the music and culture were being discussed in the proper context and with the proper enthusiasm. And it just got better. I started with the third issue and never missed a beat. The Too Short/NWA cover, the Malcolm X issue, the Decade of Rap – it was as if I’d been spending my entire life waiting to read something like this, and somewhere in the back of my mind I began to wonder how I might become a part of it.”
It just so happened that in the spring of 1990, just months before he was to graduate, he saw a job ad in the back of The Source. To that point his only writing clip was a venomous rant that he’d sent to the editor of a campus paper for a negative review given to Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet. It was published on page one of the next edition and immediately became the talk of the campus, even leading to the editor receiving a few anonymous death threats. “It was my first inkling that my writing could bring out an emotional response from people, and I kind of dug it.”
A few days after sending all his info in, he got a call from Jon Shecter, the editor-in-chief and co-founder/owner of the magazine. “I met with Jon and immediately connected with him. He seemed impressed by my knowledge of hip-hop and invited me to fall by later in the week to meet some of the other staffers. I did so and met cats like Dave Mays, Matty C and Reef for the first time. They were all busy working on the latest issue and deciding what music was going to be included in a summer preview section. We chopped it up and everything seemed to be cool. I was just trying to soak up as much as possible. It was a really cool atmosphere and I was definitely hoping to be a part of it. About a week later I was invited back. It was during that trip that I first met Ed Young. He was the third partner and the first Black person that I had met at The Source…but since I was trying to get a gig on the editorial side I had to focus on making a good impression on Jon and Reef.”
Unfortunately for Reginald, he didn’t get the editorial position. But that didn’t mean he didn’t stick around, “I did all of the work that no one else wanted to do. I shucked and jived and skinned and grinned. I ran errands. I made deliveries. I inputted 10,000 subscriptions into the Macintosh. I helped the art director, Erik Council, with lay out and post up. I tried to anticipate problems and be there to help solve them. I still continued to snag as many writing assignments as I could and slowly built my self up in the eyes of the editors. I was making progress, but it was slow and the only real opportunities seemed to be on the business side so when the Director of Retail Sales decided to leave the magazine, I was offered his position and happily accepted it.” He continues, “In the early 90s there was little confidence in the hip-hop audience. We didn’t count. Distributors believed that our audience didn’t read and that a hip-hop magazine would never be successful. Around this time Dave Mays decided to publish a supplement to The Source, which was creatively called The Source Supplement. Strictly for the industry, it was basically was a collection of sales charts. I would call all of my retail accounts and get the top five rap sales from them. I would also contact regional video shows and ask what the most requested videos were. We did about two or three issues of the supplement and were astonished to learn that the most popular records in the country were not by the likes of Main Source and Brand Nubian but rather DJ Quik and MC Breed and the DFC. I was like whoa, there is a whole different country out here that is not being reflected in the pages of The Source. So I started to step up my writing game, hoping that I could one day break into the editorial side and nudge the coverage so it spoke to a larger selection of the country.”
Soon enough Ed Young secured The Source’s first national newsstand distribution deal, and the current music editor announced his plans to leave. “The search was on for a suitable replacement. The Record Report section was easily the magazine’s most popular — before the “mic” icons were conceived of, albums were awarded a series of exploding records – and there were plans to revamp the section. I thought that I would be the perfect person to take over the job and patiently waited for the editors to approach me. They approached me all right, but only to ask me if I knew anyone who might be interested in taking the job! I was like, what the fuck? So I threw my hat into the ring and announced to anyone who would listen my intention to become the first full time Music Editor of The Source. Because of my retail work I had a good idea of what was happening around the country and knew that there was a lot of good music out there that needed to be exposed by The Source. Plus, I just plain felt that I had a better feel for this stuff than everybody else. I told Dave Mays and he literally gave me one of those — “Music Editor? You?” — kinds of looks. He clearly didn’t think I was up to the job. Fortunately David Watkins, Chris Wilder and James Bernard (a Source co-owner) disagreed and put pressure on Dave and Jon to give me the nod. Chris definitely felt that the more Black people on the editorial side the better, and I totally agreed with him.”
Many of you may have been too young to remember the days when The Source truly was the bible of hip-hop, I look at those days as fondly for the magazine as I do the music. Reginald C. Dennis was the music editor in those days; those days when Dre didn’t get 5 mics for The Chronic; those days when Nas did get 5 for Illmatic; those days when you didn’t need to be a multi-platinum rapper to get coverage. In his four years at The Source Reginald saw the magazine go from the bottom to the top, but left after Dave Mays and Ray Benzino created an environment that could not be tolerated. For the first time in the 11 years since he left the magazine, Reginald C. Dennis tells all the tales. “Everything you are about to read is something that I’ve seen heard or know. It’s all opinion, of course, but as you’ll see, my positions are highly informed. You can hate it or love it.”
“Growing up in Harlem during the 70s, I pretty much had a ringside seat to the birth of hip-hop. I lived in the Polo Grounds Projects, right across the street from Rucker Park and spent a lot of my childhood doing what I could to participate in the ongoing cultural narrative that was everyday Harlem life. By 1979 I was already well versed in the areas of emceeing and graffiti, but it was “Rapper’s Delight” that pretty much galvanized my generation and inspired me to step up my participation. I got my hands on every mixtape that I could beg, borrow or steal: Grandmaster Caz, Theodore, Busy Bee – I couldn’t get enough.” Like many in the early generation of hip-hop, Reginald found his place within the culture, “I was always pretty nice in my art classes and was an avid collector of comic books, so when the graffiti bug finally bit I knew that I’d found my place. From 1980 to 1984 my entire life revolved around graffiti.” With his complete obsession with hip-hop culture he enrolled in Rutgers University and double majored in English and Africana studies. Things changed for him at Rutgers, “I got involved with campus politics and in the spirit of various anti-Apartheid movements I became quite militant and spent a lot of time being angry at the world. Back home in Harlem, many of my friends started getting caught up in the streets. Crack, guns and fast money was what it was all about and we all wondered what, if anything, we were going to do with our lives.”
In 1988 he discovered a record store called Varsity Records, owned and operated by a man named Bill Moss. It was there he discovered a whole new side of hip-hop, “I began uncovering hundreds of rap records that I had never heard of. Too Short, NWA, The Ghetto Boys, 2 Live Crew – I didn’t know who these people were, but once I started listening I couldn’t get enough.” One day Bill handed him a magazine that he had received in the mail, and asked him to read it over to see if it was worth stocking. That magazine was The Source, and according to Reginald, “I am not exaggerating when I say that in that moment the course of my life was forever altered. This was the first time that a magazine ever spoke to me in a meaningful way. I had read a lot of good writing on hip-hop – I was always looking through the Village Voice and Spin – and sometimes even Word Up and Fresh – but The Source was the only place where the music and culture were being discussed in the proper context and with the proper enthusiasm. And it just got better. I started with the third issue and never missed a beat. The Too Short/NWA cover, the Malcolm X issue, the Decade of Rap – it was as if I’d been spending my entire life waiting to read something like this, and somewhere in the back of my mind I began to wonder how I might become a part of it.”
It just so happened that in the spring of 1990, just months before he was to graduate, he saw a job ad in the back of The Source. To that point his only writing clip was a venomous rant that he’d sent to the editor of a campus paper for a negative review given to Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet. It was published on page one of the next edition and immediately became the talk of the campus, even leading to the editor receiving a few anonymous death threats. “It was my first inkling that my writing could bring out an emotional response from people, and I kind of dug it.”
A few days after sending all his info in, he got a call from Jon Shecter, the editor-in-chief and co-founder/owner of the magazine. “I met with Jon and immediately connected with him. He seemed impressed by my knowledge of hip-hop and invited me to fall by later in the week to meet some of the other staffers. I did so and met cats like Dave Mays, Matty C and Reef for the first time. They were all busy working on the latest issue and deciding what music was going to be included in a summer preview section. We chopped it up and everything seemed to be cool. I was just trying to soak up as much as possible. It was a really cool atmosphere and I was definitely hoping to be a part of it. About a week later I was invited back. It was during that trip that I first met Ed Young. He was the third partner and the first Black person that I had met at The Source…but since I was trying to get a gig on the editorial side I had to focus on making a good impression on Jon and Reef.”
Unfortunately for Reginald, he didn’t get the editorial position. But that didn’t mean he didn’t stick around, “I did all of the work that no one else wanted to do. I shucked and jived and skinned and grinned. I ran errands. I made deliveries. I inputted 10,000 subscriptions into the Macintosh. I helped the art director, Erik Council, with lay out and post up. I tried to anticipate problems and be there to help solve them. I still continued to snag as many writing assignments as I could and slowly built my self up in the eyes of the editors. I was making progress, but it was slow and the only real opportunities seemed to be on the business side so when the Director of Retail Sales decided to leave the magazine, I was offered his position and happily accepted it.” He continues, “In the early 90s there was little confidence in the hip-hop audience. We didn’t count. Distributors believed that our audience didn’t read and that a hip-hop magazine would never be successful. Around this time Dave Mays decided to publish a supplement to The Source, which was creatively called The Source Supplement. Strictly for the industry, it was basically was a collection of sales charts. I would call all of my retail accounts and get the top five rap sales from them. I would also contact regional video shows and ask what the most requested videos were. We did about two or three issues of the supplement and were astonished to learn that the most popular records in the country were not by the likes of Main Source and Brand Nubian but rather DJ Quik and MC Breed and the DFC. I was like whoa, there is a whole different country out here that is not being reflected in the pages of The Source. So I started to step up my writing game, hoping that I could one day break into the editorial side and nudge the coverage so it spoke to a larger selection of the country.”
Soon enough Ed Young secured The Source’s first national newsstand distribution deal, and the current music editor announced his plans to leave. “The search was on for a suitable replacement. The Record Report section was easily the magazine’s most popular — before the “mic” icons were conceived of, albums were awarded a series of exploding records – and there were plans to revamp the section. I thought that I would be the perfect person to take over the job and patiently waited for the editors to approach me. They approached me all right, but only to ask me if I knew anyone who might be interested in taking the job! I was like, what the fuck? So I threw my hat into the ring and announced to anyone who would listen my intention to become the first full time Music Editor of The Source. Because of my retail work I had a good idea of what was happening around the country and knew that there was a lot of good music out there that needed to be exposed by The Source. Plus, I just plain felt that I had a better feel for this stuff than everybody else. I told Dave Mays and he literally gave me one of those — “Music Editor? You?” — kinds of looks. He clearly didn’t think I was up to the job. Fortunately David Watkins, Chris Wilder and James Bernard (a Source co-owner) disagreed and put pressure on Dave and Jon to give me the nod. Chris definitely felt that the more Black people on the editorial side the better, and I totally agreed with him.”