conventions of a music magazine

1. Conventions or a Rap magazine:
1.Special terminology – swag, G etc. ..
2.Iconography – guns, chains, girls, stacks of money, designer clothes ect ..
3.Artist is mainly black however other races are also prominent eg. Eminem
4.Each rapper who appears on the front cover of a rap magazine is usually shown in a stereo typical
rappers way, like gold chains and baggy jeans and all there tattoos on show.
5.Close up or low angle shots are usually used to show that the rapper is big, powerful and strong.
6.They usually have a angry or straight facial expression to look intimidating and scary.
7.Rappers personalities and lyrics in their songs try to make out that the artist is successful,
powerful and rich.
8.Artists will be in front of the magazine masthead to show that they are powerful and it makes
them stand out.
The imagines I used gather information about these conventions, most of the images I used are
from the XXL magazine.
The logo of the magazine is once again is located at the top of the page
XXL magazine:
It was issued 6 times a year but has recently stopped being printed due the drop in sales.
It follows the conventional magazine layout with colours and text.
The target audience for this specific magazine id Rap music fans usually aged between 16-24.
It features a lot of iconography associated with Rap and the stigma surrounding the genre such as
tattoos, money, violence and guns.
The magazine is laid out in a professional way with capitalised text and this has a stronger impact
on the audience.
Red, black and white are the main colours of the magazine which go well with primary colours such
as yellow and blue, these colours suggest that the target audience are mainly male.