Vibe: RIP June 2009

It's been a bad week for Quincy Jones.

First, his musical protege Michael Jackson decided he couldn't stop when he had enough, stopped breathing and ended his recording career.

Then today, the magazine he founded 16 years ago with Time Inc., although he sold it a long time ago, went to join Tupac Shakur, Ol Dirty Bastard, and Notorious B.I.G. in the Reaper's crib. Big ass flat screen TV, stereo system with 5 foot subwoofers, and Sub Zero fridge to store recent arrivals.

I'm trying to book Rev. Al Sharpton for a public memorial but they don't have news crews where the Reaper lives, so he won't come.

Comments

[Blake's Baby]

This is sad, but not surprising. I love Danyel Smith, and her work on the magazine in its heyday of the mid-to-late 90s really set that magazine at the center of the zeitgeist of hip-hop's takeover of American pop culture.

But Vibe's departure is an echo of where hip-hop culture is right now. The innovations are just not being made in that music right now. The artists are cuter and more stylish than they ever were, but they also have much less to say. The established legends have moved into larger spheres of influence (Mary, Jay-Z, etc..). You couple that with the challenges in the economy and the debt load amassed through Vibe's various regime changes and...it is what it is.

I think Danyel Smith is brilliant enough to eventually land somewhere else. The rest of the team as well.

I'm pleased that Vibe lasted as long as it did. It was a major influence on my desire to join journalism. But for the mag industry at large, and this title, it's time to call a spade a spade.

[Jermo]

Another waste of trees bites the dust. Someone, please pass Rev. Al a tissue.

[junebee]

And let's hope hip-hop dies right along with it.

[Blake's Baby]

I'd rather not piss on hip-hop as others on your message boards have done, Reaper.

I do have to say though, that music magazines are beholden to the same fate as Vibe for another huge reason: aggregators on the Internet--like elbo.ws and others--just plain do a better job of keeping you up-to-date on music than magazines ever will. Who needs critics when you can just survey likes and dislikes across the blogosphere, all compiled in one site.

The inside gossip and deets that Vibe was so expert at serving up in the late 90s? The mediatakeout.coms of the world accomplish on a daily basis.

[Paul Riddell]

So...when do Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly end up on the dead magazine bonfire?

[Blake's Baby]

..or Spin, now that you mention it.

[Jocko Johnson]

Vibe i a great magazine

There are a lot of interesting information

[Turd Polisher]

"Vibe i a great magazine

There are a lot of interesting information"

Doesn't that sum up their readership nicely.

As much as I'm a fan of hip-hop, mainstream hip-hop with it's flaunting of diamonds, Dom Perignon and Escalades has become exceedingly irrelevant (if not downright annoying) to a nation saddled with massive layoffs and painful pay cuts. That said who really wants to see how Kanye's livin?