DropMagazine

As a casual fan of hip-hop, I find some publications on the music, the scene, and the culture inaccessible. Not so with recently released DropMagazine. It’s not as if co-founders Alex Richard and Sam Wils don’t know their stuff — based on the first few weeks, they do — but the articles, columns, reviews, interviews, and industry news offered on their site seem targeted at a slightly broader audience than the big name outlets. With any genre, increased popularity seems to lead to fragmentation as various cliques, sub genres, mainstream and underground elements splinter into increasingly incompatible (even downright hostile) camps. Media treatment of hip-hop can make matters worse, resulting in a off-putting mish-mash for those of us who love the music, but don’t want to deal with the drama. DropMagazine offers a fresh voice in the community, plus directly accessing its readers via blog, where users can comment and keep tabs on any new developments. If its early history is any indication, Drop’s future looks mighty promising.