Rap Pages

Rap Pages was founded by the publisher Larry Flynt. According to Sheena Lester, a later editor-in-chief, one of Flynt's bodyguards came up with the idea for the magazine.[2] Rap Pages was one of the first magazines dedicated to hip hop.[3] The first issue was released in October 1991. It featured a pick-up shot of the rapper Ice Cube on the cover, as the magazine wasn't shooting its own covers at the time.[2] The magazine was based in Los Angeles, California.[3]

At the time, the West Coast artists believed that The Source, which was the leading hip hop magazine, didn't represent their scene adequately. Rap Pages was launched with the editor-in-chief Dane Webb announcing a goal to shift the focus to West Coast, citing the perceived East Coast bias of The Source as the reason.[4] Another goal Webb proclaimed was to improve Black communities, with him encouraging people to "[s]pend less time drinkin' them damn 40s, spend less time on the corner and more time in them books".[5] Rap Pages started as a bimonthly magazine, eventually switching to one issue every six weeks, and then switching to a monthly format in October 1995.[6] According to the writer Jeff Weiss, Rap Pages was the only magazine that offered a full-time coverage of West Coast hip hop.[7]

In October 1999, Larry Flynt Publications halted publication of Rap Pages and put the magazine up for sale. They received multiple bids,[8] and sold it to Timaj Publications in May 2000. Under the new management and with the original editor-in-chief Dane Webb the magazine was relaunched, with plans of launching a separate Spanish-language version.[3] However, after releasing several more issues, Rap Pages once again ceased publication by the end of 2000.[9] The Jersey Journal reported in January 2002 that Rap Pages was a defunct magazine.[10] In 2014, a website Rap Pages TV was launched.[9][11]

Despite using a leftover portrait from another photo shoot as the cover of its first issue, later on Rap Pages started producing their own photos for the covers.[2] The magazine hired the photographer Brian Cross,[12] who was its photo editor from 1993 to 1998.[13] Describing his time in Rap Pages, Cross said: "We had a team of A-list editors who all went on to do important things in hip-hop, and we would just sit around and have these loose, funny conversations, which is how we came up with a lot of shoot concepts."[14] In his book Totally Wired, the writer Paul Gorman praised Rap Pages as a magazine that "showcased inventive layouts and striking front covers", noting that it occurred during Sheena Lester's tenure as editor-in-chief.[5] Complex magazine also commended Rap Pages, saying that "in its prime Rap Pages ... [boasted] high-quality reporting, niche hip-hop coverage, and some very original covers". The publication placed several Rap Pages covers in its list of the 50 greatest hip hop magazine covers; some of the covers included are an Ol' Dirty Bastard's parody of Janet Jackson's Rolling Stone cover, which shows him standing behind a topless fan, covering her breasts with his hands, a cover depicting Lauryn Hill as a four-armed goddess, and a cover depicting the group Pharcyde wrapped in a recording tape.[15]

Another Rap Pages cover, which Rolling Stone magazine called "iconic", was the portrait of the Notorious B.I.G. wearing a crown.[16] The photograph, titled "King of New York", was taken by Barron Claiborne, three days prior to the rapper being assassinated on March 9, 1997.[17] It was the last photoshoot of the Notorious B.I.G.[18] The portrait quickly became one of the most well-known photos of the rapper.[19] In 2020, the plastic crown used in the photo, originally purchased by Claiborne for $6, was sold through an auction for $594,750.[16][20]