Rap/Hip Hop Genre Research

Current Published Magazines:

There is a wide variety of Rap & Hip Hop Magazines on the market currently. However, I have allocated myself to look at the 6 best magazines through branding and popularity. I decided to look through popular existing Rap & Hip Hop to identify the correct codes and conventions of which makes these magazines popular and stand out from the rest. These Magazines all connote the same genre Rap & Hip Hop and follow the consistent genre type throughout the magazine. These Magazines offer elements regarding to music but also offer other content such as Interviews, Freebies, Discounts and Prizes. These elements will attract the audience to buy these magazines as they will practically get more than just a magazine.

Target Market

The Rap and Hip Hop Genre appeals to young ages and young adults 16-21. The gender is more aimed towards male professions as evidently majority of the Rap Magazines are male orientated. Furthermore, Hip Hop Magazines are also a little promptly gender neutral as Famous Artists consisting of Rihanna, Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj are allocated within this genre type of Hip Hop. However,  Combining the codes and conventions of Rap and Hip Hop together, the overall target audience remains the same for ages (16-21) but is more male orientated, as clearly mentioned before, existing popular Rap and Hip Hop magazines portray the image of being specifically male orientated.

Content on the Magazine

These existing magazines offer a range of content within them meeting the overall needs of all audiences through interviews, offers, discounts, freebies and overall informative content referring to the music genres of Rap and Hip Hop. These magazines range from £4.00 to £6.00. Each magazine brand has a subscription plan where they can pay £30 for the year and receive the latest magazine when published, this works out to be a cheaper option appealing to more individuals as paying £30 for 12 magazines works out to be £2.50 being £1.50 cheap than paying separately. These Magazines are all equally publishing monthly meaning 12 magazines will be published. However, every 4 years – the special 50^th edition is released to the audience making it published 13 times a year every 4 years. The general theme of majority of the Rap Magazines currently on the magazine empathise violence towards one another through the use of catchphrases containing alcohol and drugs. Another feature which is extremely visually represented on the Rap Magazines is the presence of wealth, through the use of expensive branded clothing and gold/diamond ornaments and jewellery.

Gap in the Market

A gap in the market is an element which hasn’t been published in the market or online. Finding the gap in the market is finding out what is missing in the market so it makes my magazine unique and different from the others which have already been published on the market. For the Rap Scene of magazines, majority of the magazines offer different variations of elements and content within the magazines but however, the magazines don’t offer all the content and elements within one magazine. Furthermore, all Rap Magazines are masculine orientated, so mainly; this can be considered the ‘GAP’ in the market to make the Rap Magazine somewhat gender neutral.

Also, by adding all the elements such as Freebies, Discounts, appealing images, and event tickets and so on as well as making the Rap magazine Gender neutral and fitting which closes the gender gap of Rap Magazine Readers, will differ my Rap magazine from the current magazines on the market under the Rap genre. This will fit the purpose of finding the GAP In the market for my chosen genre.