So the news started making the rounds last week that the new issue of Scratch Magazine will be its last. As with the previous couple issues, I had a little Boiling Point profile of an up-and-coming producer and their current hit, this time with Cyber Sapp, who did "Freaky Gurl" by Gucci Mane and Ludacris.

But I'm not crying over any future paychecks I could've gotten off the gig, I'm mourning what was by far my favorite music magazine on the stands for the past 3 years. It was a great, unique publication, servicing an audience of industry-savvy rap fans who care about the music itself as much as the controversies that other mags move units with. I think that audience has grown in recent years, but evidently it wasn't big enough to keep an operation like this in the black. But even in the past year or two, particularly after they added the "XXL Presents..." to the title, when they'd include rappers in every cover story along with producers, sometimes pumping up albums that don't actually exist (Detox, Nas/Premo), and the aforementiond Boiling Point section became about nothing but current radio singles instead of just dope songs by major artists, the mag as a whole was still more or less true to its roots and improved in a lot of ways. I made the point recently that these days there are a good dozen or so hip hop producers that are as famous as any rapper these days, and a mag about those producers had a way better chance of surviving in the current environment than it would've at any point in the past, but I guess it still wasn't enough.

Mostly, though, I'm really happy I got to be a part of Scratch at all, even if it was just for the last 3 issues. Big big thanks to Noz once again for giving me the opportunity, it was cool that once one of the hip hop bloggers from the old days (y'know, 3 years ago, the stone age of rap blogging) got a foot in the industry he went back and got some of the rest of us some paper. I had all these cool ideas I'd been putting off pitching to the mag all Summer that I won't get to try to do now. I've thought a long time about doing a rap production blog, maybe this will motivate me to finally put that together and maybe get some other Scratch writers involved. Or maybe I'll just bring back the Producer Series on here. Or maybe I'll finally get off my ass and get some better recording equipment and make the sick beats I've always known I have in me. Thing is, I always wanted to be in Scratch as either a writer or a producer being written about. I got to do one, guess I'll never get a chance with the other.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 at 8:20 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.