Hip hop magazine The Source, which was saved from bankruptcy by media and entertainment lawyer L. Londell McMillan and investment banker Jeffery Scott, who bought the title earlier this year, is relaunching for its 20th anniversary with a new focus that its new publishers hope will restore its popularity.
McMillan told Associated Press: "It's a very seminal period, an opportunity to both celebrate 20 years of content and the fact that The Source was a leader in chronicling the culture of hip-hop. I'm on a mission to restore it to the community that gave birth to it and open the door to those that currently enjoy and influence that hip-hop culture. It's exciting because we believe that we can do it. We're just going to expand on what The Source has always done well. [Music will be] a core focus but not 80 per cent of the book".
The 20th anniversary issue will hit newsstands next week, and will feature four separate covers of LL Cool J, Ice Cube, Queen Latifah and Nas, photographed by director Spike Lee. Inside, readers will find weightier content, including a discussion between prominent professors Cornel West and Michael Eric Dyson and Chuck D.
McMillan continued: "I think that what we're trying to do is evolve it as hip-hop has evolved and become an international force, to evolve it without losing its core essence that was the centrepiece of its earliest beginnings and greatness. But it has to evolve, just like hip-hop has to evolve".