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| Elliot Wilson |
Elliot Wilson nails down the hip-hop magazine game
By Quibian Salazar-Moreno
You really can’t tell Elliot Wilson much he doesn’t already know about the magazine game. Closing in on about
15 years in the game the editor-in-chief of XXL is continuing to make bold moves and unapologetic decisions in the day to
day operations of hip-hop’s new #1 magazine and the future of the XXL brand.
Right now Wilson is hitting the streets promoting the compilation album, XXL Raps, a collection of some of the not-so popular
songs from some of the most popular hip-hop artists in the industry. We caught up with Wilson to talk about the album, why
it seems like 50 Cent and Interscope is like on half of the covers this year, and what was going on behind the scenes when
he was beefing with The Source.
Of course you’re familiar with the criticism of XXL featuring Interscope artists on the cover quite a bit, fans even
calling you Jimmy Iovine’s puppet and an “Interscope dickrider”; how do you feel about that?
It just frustrates me. Obviously the magazine is not owned by Jimmy Iovine, it’s owned by Harris Publications and no
one’s making me put 50 Cent on the cover, I’m choosing to put 50 Cent on the cover. I do it because he remains
relevant to the culture and what’s going on and whether people see his movie or don’t see his movie, he’s
continually doing things that impact the culture. He’s a controversial figure that people have proven to me that they
want to read about. I found ways to package it and sell it and do him and Eminem and Game and those are three of the biggest
artists in the past couple of years and they all happen to be on Interscope and Dr. Dre also.
There’s so many ways to answer this question, but at the end of the day, when I was at The Source and the biggest artists
were all from Def jam and people would say, you know we’d have Jay-Z on the cover, then DMX, then LL and then Ja Rule,
and they’d be like “see, The Source is only putting Def Jam on the cover.” I mean it happens. Other than
Kanye and distant successes outside of that, most of the biggest artists have been from Interscope in the past couple of years.
But that doesn’t mean I’m putting Interscope artists Black Eyed Peas on the cover. I think they suck and that
they’re worst group in hip-hop. You know, some Interscope artists suck and some of them are good. And obviously if the
other magazine takes a stance against Interscope like they did, now they don’t have access to the top artists which
puts me in a great position, because I have access to these artists. So should I not do it and take advantage of the situation?
I always felt like the breaks sometimes go your way but ultimately, outside of my Interscope covers, I think my magazine is
still good from top to bottom. I think the other magazine is upset because they don’t have access to cover the most
relevant artists right now. But I didn’t put them in that position; they put themselves in that position. The fans can
feel like XXL and Elliot Wilson have an unfair advantage and it’s messed up why should they be the only mag with access
but 50 and Game they do Vibe covers. I mean, 50 is on the cover of GQ getting his Zoolander on, they do every magazine too.
You see Game on every magazine. I mean I don’t have a monopoly I don’t control anything, and if I had my way they
wouldn’t be on any other cover, they’d be on my cover. I just feel I’ve packaged it well and done it at
the right times and the results have always been there. And when it stops selling I’ll stop doing it. It’s as
simple as that. It’s a business and I’m a national magazine and those are the artists that people want to read
about.
Check this out this is very telling. I did a Juvenile cover before I did the G-unit cover that’s out right now covering
Hurricane Katrina. And you have your letters sections where you run the letters that are written to you. I barely got enough
letters to run for the Juvenile cover I did, the letters a trickling in, I barely have enough to fill a page. But this G-unit
cover has only been out for a week or two and I already got tons of letters. A lot of the letters are going to say, Elliot
you suck, get off Jimmy’s jock and 50 is gay, and Mase is a hypocrite. A lot of letters are going to say that and the
funny thing is I run those letters. Like if you read the letters section, they’re mostly negative, because there is
that backlash. None of these letters are fake, I run real letters and some of them have took me to task. At the end of the
day, I guarantee you with all the hate that comes and all those letters that come and the reaction is there, the sales numbers
are still going to be good. We’re going to prove that it sells 40 percent, you know the standard of success for me,
it’s going to be one of my best selling issues of the year and it’s going to justify why I did it. Half of those
people are going to love it; half those people are going to hate it. That’s like what somebody on a superstar level,
that’s what the reaction is and it’s very few artist like 50, Game Em or Dre who I know I can put on the cover
and I’m gonna sell.
Jay-Z- is probably one of the only ones and he’s not even active. Magazine-wise, Jay-Z is bigger than the artists he’s
trying to sell. Jay-Z and 50 have put themselves in these business capacities where they’re signing all these artists.
If I would have done a Mobb Deep and M.O.P cover like a year ago, people would have been like “Wow, XXL has the hottest
street ish anyone has ever done,” but now that they’re signed to G-Unit it’s a sellout move. It’s
Interscope and its Jimmy Iovine. But 50 is signing these guys, and Jay-Z- is signing The Roots and if Jay-Z and 50 Cent really
work on the Freeway album, why shouldn’t I put Jay-Z Freeway and 50 Cent on the cover? I think that’s historic
if those two guys do come together and work on this guy’s project. You damn right I’m going to put Jay-Z, 50 cent
again and Freeway on the cover because that’s the history. That’s something that’s part history and we’re
documenting it.
I think fans just feel like it’s excessive especially when they think like Common, Kanye or someone else making dope
hip-hop deserves a cover…
But I did that with Dave Chappelle and it didn’t sell. Where were they when I did that? I’ve studied statistics
of all the magazines my friend. Vibe, Source, XXL, I have sales numbers for every issue for the past couple of years. I know
what sells. Let me tell you something, Common, Kanye West, Outkast and Ludacris great rappers, multi-platinum artists but
they don’t sell magazines. I don’t what it is, Busta Rhymes too, I don’t know what it is but they don’t
sell magazines. So I said okay, Common and Kanye they do great work, they deserve a magazine cover, what’s a way I can
do it and make it marketable so I can sell? We have been in contact with Dave Chappelle for a long time, his show had taken
off and we did this roundtable with Dave, Common, Kanye, dead prez, Talib Kweli, you know what you call conscious, backpack,
groundbreaking ish. It didn’t sell. It was frustrating, it didn’t sell. It sold very poorly.
Even after the whole “George Bush doesn’t like Black people” comment, you don’t think a Kanye cover
would sell?
It hasn’t so far. Not one cover he’s done has sold well. I can only judge from what it’s been, honestly.
Seriously, there’s a difference between people deserving a cover and getting a cover. There are a lot of people that
deserve a cover but I can’t, I made some decisions in the past like putting Wu-Tang way past their prime on the cover
and it didn’t sell well. I was going with my heart and not with my mind. I just have problems at this point in my career,
being in the #1 spot doing a cover that I know isn’t going to do well. I’m a national magazine, I’m not
Elemental, my goal is to sell magazines. I can keep it real on the inside and find a way to get a feature on the inside, like
a feature on a Madlib or MF Doom, but at the end of the day I’m a national magazine. I’m trying to reach the most
people so I’m through making decisions with my heart and not my mind. If there’s a way to package Kanye again,
I’ll do it but ultimately he hasn’t sold magazines so far.
So you can’t afford to do one or two covers a year with your heart?
I mean if it makes sense but you gotta understand I’m not this purist. People get it twisted. I wrote the Ego Trip Book
of Rap Lists, I’m a pure lover of hip-hop, I love hip-hop but I’m not no sellout but people want act like I’m
sitting here like I really don’t listen to 50 Cent and I’m forcing myself to put him on the cover. I listen to
50 Cent, I like 50 Cent, I like some of his music. But I also like Kanye’s album and I like Common’s album, and
I’ll give them XXL ratings and what they deserve but when it comes to making a decision of a cover that’s the
most business decision you can make. And I think I’ve been smart with my choices of what I’ve done with the covers
and reaching more people which has helped XXL reach the spot that we’re in now because I made the right cover choices
at the right time.
So maybe a time will come, you’re right, I did Scarface on a cover I’ve done what people call credibility covers
I’ve done covers where I knew wouldn’t do great but it’s right thing to do at the right time. To a certain
extent Juvenile was that, I didn’t think Juvenile was going to sell plus Atlantic Records dropped the ball and didn’t
put out the record. But at the end of the day I know the Hurricane Katrina thing is a historic event that needed to be documented.
I was way on top the New Orleans scene for years and a lot of our early success was covering Cash Money so I feel like I owe
Juvenile that look you know what I mean? I’ve done things like that with my heart, but I also feel like that Juvenile
cover will be the worst selling cover that I’ve done all year. So you’re right, I think there’s moments,
obviously the Chappelle thing, I thought it wouldn’t do well but I thought the Chappelle element will bring it to another
level. So yeah, there will be times where it’ll be hard to tell Outkast that they don’t deserve a cover, because
they deserve a cover every time, they’re one of the greatest groups of all time, but the challenge for me is how do
I find a level of where I can sell it, how to make it successful because honestly these people from what I’ve seen have
showed that they’re continually not selling magazines on the cover.
It’s a hard balance but I feel I’ve made the right choices cover-wise and I love to continually document these
people, document them on the inside and find ways to stay on top of everything. It’s a balancing act obviously but I
have no shame, I mean if I do 50 Cent and 50 Cent kicks Game out of the group and no one spoke to Game, why shouldn’t
I go to speak to Game again? What if Eminem is ready to talk about being in rehab wants to give an exclusive story to that,
I shouldn’t do it because I did an Eminem cover last year? I mean I think you still got to deal with the who the bigger
people in the music are, and if they’re doings things that are making headlines and impacting the culture continually,
it ends up being the same people, it’s still Jay-Z. I mean, how many of the big stars today aren’t the same stars
of the last couple of years. You know, Jay-Z, Nas, Eminem, it’s not like there’s been that many different entities.
And the ones who have come are related to certain people in the game like 50 Cent coming out of Eminem and Game coming out
of 50.
Now inside the magazine, besides Chairman’s Choice, some fans feel like you don’t cover underground or indie
hip-hop that much, why is that?
I haven’t done that Egon cover right? I try to do featurettes, like smaller features a two page thing and this year
I did Madlib which is in the G-Unit issue and I did MF Doom earlier. Mao did both of those things and I did a Little Brother
page feature. But honestly, I never got one letter at XXL saying, “oh my god, do a Little Brother story, you guys suck”
or “9th Wonder is the ish”, our readers aren’t those followers. I don’t have a demand to do a story
on Def Jux and EL-P, not that I don’t respect what they’re doing or whoever, but at the same time I think its
cool that people can say “Elliot sold out and did another 50 Cent cover with Mase and all these people,” but there’s
a Madlib story in there. Some of these people who know 50 Cent don’t know who Madlib is.
But there is a Madlib story in there and Chairman Mao does it and I feel like I have the best person to do that stuff which
is Chairman Mao who’s written about the underground for years. Through Vibe, through us, that column back in the day
in Ego Trip, Vinyl Solutions we created together. This whole thing of documenting the underground and 12” this is something
in Ego Trip and we’ve done throughout and I try to find its place in XXL but once again I’m a national magazine.
I’m limited in my space and if the Houston explosion is this, obviously that’s going to take precedence over some
of the other movements that is going on in hip-hop. I think its balancing act, like I said, but I’m proud I can get
Madlib in an issue where I’m at my commercial apex with 50 Cent and his whole roster on the cover.
So what’s the story behind XXL Raps?
I just felt it was time to do something different to just sort of expand the brand at this point We lived up to what we said
we were going to do which was become the number one hip-hop magazine and I still feel like there’s a ways to go in developing
the brand. Anytime you replace the first of its kind, it’s an uphill battle so I felt that the album was a good step
towards exposing the brand to new audiences.
We signed with this label called Razor & Tie and there forte is TV marketing stuff, they buy a lot of TV time so I don’t
know if you’ve seen but there’s been a lot of commercials hyping up the record and I feel like that to me helps
like present XXL to people who really don’t read it every month that are more casual fans. They may have bought a couple
of issues but don’t buy it every month.
In terms of the record there are 18 songs we got Eminem and 50 Cent on there and from there I was able to get, once you get
the big names other people will come around and it becomes legitimate so I got the big names. So we got a lot of the down
south cats like T.I., Lil Jon, Paul Wall, David Banner and I tried to break the tradition of doing singles and the same sons
you hear on the radio 85 times a day. So I picked a lot of album tricks on the Fat Tape kind of vibe or mixtape vibe to it
and to me it gave a harder edge. I sequenced it myself and I feel like it’s good hip-hop. From top to bottom its not
gonna change the world, it’s a small compilation and I think we only shipped 50,000 so you know it’s small thing
but I felt the TV exposure would also help introduce the brand to different audiences, you know? Plus compilations series
are still doing damage out there, but nobody is really doing rap compilations right now and I feel like let’s see if
we can establish ourselves in that world.
We’ll probably do a volume two and maybe be more of a different concept, something like new artists or unreleased songs
from big artists, you know what I mean? It’ll be something that we’ll do different concepts with it going forward
in the future. But you know also do it independent because I didn’t want to do the record on a major, like Interscope
so even more people could talk more ish. So we do it on an independent label so we don’t have to worry about people
thinking well if they give you song that they expect extra love in the magazine. You do it on a small independent label and
keep the integrity on your side and do what you think is best.
I’m sure you getting a lot of flack for the first five songs being Interscope/Aftermath/G-Unit related. Why did you
set it up like that?
Well, yeah, but I picked those songs and like I was saying when I was sequencing the record I had a vision of starting with
Eminem and 50 Cent, those are the two biggest hip-hop artists, both of those songs “Evil Deeds” and “Ski
Mask Way” flowed into each other good. Then I was going to spread out the other G-Unit songs because I didn’t
want people to “Aw, it’s just all in the front” but when I [mixed it up] it just didn’t flow. I wanted
a continuous listen so when you look at the songs they kind of flow all together. The South songs are all packed together,
then you get Remy and Fat Joe back to back who are both Terror Squad, and you get Young Gunz and Memphis Bleek back to back
and they’re both Roc-A-Fella, so I paired a lot of the groups and cliques together because I just felt that their records
flowed out of each other and made for a better listen instead of trying to spread it out and save face. So if the haters want
to be like “Well, the first five songs are Interscope” then they can say it but I just felt it was best to make
the record flow well and sequence well. I didn’t feel it was working in any other way.
How come there aren’t any west coast artists on there?
Well I tried to get a Game song and that was drama and the only thing that has some West Coast flavor is the T.I. song. Daz
produced it so it has a little bit of that vibe. I felt the Fabolous song “Ghetto” also has a West Coast feel
to the track. You know heavy keyboards and it sounds like a fake Dr. Dre track to me, but you know the big guys in the West
in The Game and Snoop and I just couldn’t clear their songs in time. Unfortunately it didn’t work out but hopefully
next time.
Common kind of sticks out like a red-headed stepchild among all the thugs and gangstas on the album…
I wanted Kanye on there and something from his album and it didn’t work so I ended up with “Food” which
is Common with Kanye which is actually the only song which is an exclusive. It’s the unreleased version of “Food”
not the Dave Chappelle version on the Common album. I think the Obie Trice song on the album is thoughtful in certain ways
and of course Trick Daddy always tries to play that melancholy social I’m a thug for children type of song. So like
the three songs at the end of are the more thoughtful thinking man type of records food for though type of stuff. So it ended
on that kind of note so I kind of paired those songs together. The Common song does stick out but it does end up piecing those
songs together as more of a bit kind of thoughtful kind of hip-hop. A little bit more focus on the lyricism element of it.
Your whole beef with The Source was well publicized. Now that Kim Osorio left the mag, have you guys squashed your previous
beef?
We shook hands. We have a common friend Minya Oh, Miss Info and Minya has never gotten between our battles but you know I
just saw her and it was weird because I haven’t seen her in a long time and I said what’s up Kim and I shook her
hand. It’s funny, Datwon Editor in Chief of King Magazine was there and he was like “Oh, this is crazy!”
We just kept it moving didn’t have a conversation or anything. But we went at each other hard and it was a crazy time.
She was really reppin’ her team and I was reppin’ my time and it just got real competitive because we knew each
other for a long time. I had helped her get her start in Journalism at The Source. A lot of people don’t know that so
I felt betrayed once she became EIC she became real aggressive in terms of trying to shut me down as a magazine behind the
scenes.
She was really trying to get new artists to make choices like “You can get a Mic Check, but you can’t do a Show
& Prove in XXL”, she was fighting for exclusivity over new artists so I felt like that was really crossing the line.
She was coming at me real aggressive trying to get me out the game. So I was like, okay, just because you’re a woman
doesn’t mean I’m not gonna come at you like you were a man, and I came at her. People wanted to view me as some
kind of misogynist, but people don’t know behind the scenes she was really trying to take me out with more aggression
than any editor before. I had worked too hard and built the magazine too much to back down at that time.
But I had to recognize that I was getting involved in the battles that weren’t my place. This dude made a record about
Eminem and they became part of the story. Our job is to document the story not be the story. I didn’t want to end up
getting my ass kicked because 50 Cent did something to Benzino that has nothing to do with me. I’m here to just cover
the culture. At the end of the day I just had to say, I’m not going to put myself in that position, and my staff and
become the story. We had to pull ourselves away and recognize. And people forget, when we did the Dre, Em and 50 cover, two
months later we did a Ja Rule and Irv Gotti cover. I tried my best to keep a balance of it, but we stopped doing Murder Inc
when Murder Inc stopped selling records when they became irrelevant musically. I’m not taking sides in terms of this,
I’m here to cover this culture, we need to have both sides covered. If Murder Inc starts selling records again, then
maybe you’ll see them on the cover of XXL again. So maybe 50 is not going to like but if that’s what’s going
in hip-hop, that’s what’s going on. I definitely went through a lot but at this point me and Kim are cool, and
what she’s going through right now I don’t know anything about that but at the end of the day we were rivals at
a crazy time but things have changed now and I’ve moved on and I hope she’s moved on.
I’m not trying to out-thug or out-gangsta anybody, I’m just rap nerd. Benzino has called me a weirdo; I am a weirdo
just doing a rap magazine. I’m a journalist, I’m not a gangsta, I’m not a killer, not a thug, never tried
to be. I never claimed to be anything that I’m not. I just work hard and I put out a good magazine.
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