How did you

attract/address your
audience

My audience
Rap is a more mainstream music genre that is generally thought. Rap and hip hop
consumers, according to a forbes.com article comprise of 45 million people, between
the ages of 13 and 34 and between 60 and 75% white according to which publication
you read. The common perception is that rap music appeals mainly to black/African
American teenagers, but its target audience is considerably wider than this. Rap fans
come from a range of nationalities, ethnic groups, and religions. Their collective
spending power is $500 billion in the US alone (data from a Tech Crunch article called
Global Grind). The number of rap fans may be much much bigger than suggested by
forbes.com in that apparently 37.1% of 15-25 year olds in China love hip hop/rap.
Eminems album Marshall Mathers EP sold 21 million copies alone. The target audience
for rap magazine XXL for example is 78% male, with a median age of 27, 44.7%
college buyers and 67% African Americans.

Front cover attracting/addressing

my audience
The most obvious way to attract an audience to your magazine is by its cover. Judging by (slightly
conflicting) demographics of rap music fans, the majority seem to be white (although XXL magazine has a
majority of black/African American readers). I wanted to attract those rap music fans who are looking for an
Eminem style rap star as their idol. I used a model on my cover to appeal to these fans. His tattoos would
ally him with Eminem as would his clothes. I also wanted to attract female readers, who are not renowned
for their rap magazine readership. Female rappers are becoming global stars, such as Nicki Minaj and Iggy
Azalea, and I wanted this to be represented on my cover by the cover line Minaj or Azalea. Rap magazine
readers would respond to various visual codes on the cover of my magazine, such as the predominant use
of black, white and red. Many generic conventions were followed on my cover in order to attract my reader,
such as a list of rap artists which appears on most rap magazine covers, the use of a quotation, the use of
a major rap star as the main image and the subject of the main article in the magazine, and a plus sign
linking two cover lines together. The title of the magazine itself was created to attract the rap magazine
reader with its acknowledgement of the roots of rap music in the graffiti art of New York. Another
convention to attract the reader is the use of a 'top 10 cover line commonly used on rap magazine covers.
The background to my cover is white, another convention to attract the rap magazine reader.

Contents page and double page

spread attracting/addressing my
audience
My contents page was designed to attract the rap reader in its use of colours black,
white and red. A black background is common in rap magazine contents pages. I
designed the fashion and feature articles to be tailor made for my rap magazine
reader making sure that the content of my magazine crossed age boundaries in the
use of high fashion articles to appeal to the slightly older, wealthier reader. My double
page spread follows the conventions of existing rap magazines in the use of a large
image on the left page, and large initials and text on the right page. As an
acknowledgement of the intelligence of my reader, I included a reference to Greek
mythology in the regeneration of the phoenix as a metaphor for the reinvention of
Alfie Dobinsons career. I contained a drug reference in the pun its all a big deal In
order to address that part of rap culture.