Ever since I remember, wherever I heard something about hip-hop magazines, everybody was talking about XXL and it’s greatness and supremacy over other magazines.
Especially over The Source, other magazines like Vibe had never been mentioned in same sentence as XXL & The Source.
They were always somewhere in the same spot, but The Source was slowly but safe putting nails in it’s coffin. If anyone remembers, The Source’s main problem was questionable objectivity in albums reviews. They gave 4.5 mics to Mays Man’s album as well as putting his ads through whole mag. But their biggest mistake was campaign against Eminem, claiming that he as a white guy & leader of commercial hip-hop ruins legacy of black culture, meanwhile, leader of campaign and owner of The Source was Ray Benzino, a white guy too. But anyway, story probably ended when XXL had Nas who was burning The Source on cover. Since then, almost everyone don’t want to hear about The Source while they adore XXL. I’m not one of them, but not because I’m hater, there are many reasons to confirm that. Let’s go through the magazine.

The cover is banging, all the time, any time, no matter who’s on it, they always make the most out of it. They always have the hottest rappers and stars, and photo is always connected with their current release or hit, and that is big plus because it can easily attract the customer, but… The magazine’s content most often starts somewhere between 20th and 30th page because first pages are reserved for ads which represent hip-hop clothes, new albums, websites and other things which you do not even look at. Skipping through table of contents page aka Top Billin and editorial, we come to inbox aka readers mail. This is the first time when magazine can p!ss you off, but okay, editors are not guilty because convicts and people with no hip-hop knowledge read this mag. Mag continues with articles like Show’n’Prove and 360 which are one page long. Show’n’Prove introduces new artists who made some spark in underground scene while 360 mainly presents anticipated artists and short interviews with them, this is also pretty nice part of the mag but more and more you get some unknown dirty south groups or rappers which they claim to be dope. I don’t think so.
Eye Candy is probably everyone’s favorite part of Double XL but it certainly isn’t mine because those video vixens do not look great if you ask me ( but I will not talk about that like that is a bad point of the mag because many people (convicts) find them hot)) and most of the times they want to represent themselves like some (in their words) bad b!tches or gangstas. Chill girls, please. great photo shoot which is banging too. Nice thing is that after that you get even more stories about artists, something like write-ups on their current state of career but I don’t like this because XXL always represent them like they are incredibly hot and you can never read anything bad about them ( at least not in these articles), it goes something like this: in review section they will say that David Banner's album lacks on lyrics, and then next month in article about him, they will write about him as a premier south gangsta lyricist.
Cover Story comes after that (keep in mind that you have to skip through 10 pages of ads to come there). The cover story is probably highlight of the issue. Each time you get interview with hottest act in hip-hop and every time is pretty interesting and plus point are great photo shoots which are banging every time.
Even if you get about at least 30 pages of rap clothing ads, editors still find enough space to put some male models wearing hip-hop clothes, that takes about 10 pages and it’s useless if you ask me, but okay, someone can define his own style with that so I’ll leave it.
My favorite part of (any) magazine are the reviews, but they always make me feel bad (in XXL) because the rating list is played out. It consists of the lowest S rating, to highest XXL rating (with M, L, XL in between). Bad thing is that most of the albums get XL rating, which is one X from classic. And in the end it’s hard to define what is good and what is bad. Hurricane G, Rick Ross, Nas, Jay-Z all got XL’s for their albums. Objectivity is certainly questionable, and they were telling that The Source is sold out. Please. Even if it’s sold out, The Source has half mics in ratings so we can at least see the difference between albums qualities.
Last 10 pages are consisted of penis enlargements programs, hot looking girls hotlines etc. and in the last few issues you get pretty cool Air Jordan ad on last two pages.

Conclusion is: XXL is far from best magazine around. It has too many ads, and that is very annoying in my opinion- 100th issue consists of 160 pages of which 82 are ads, yes, more than a half. 99th issue had 138 pages, 58 of them were ads. I won’t pay for ads anymore.
If you ask me, XXL is sold out too and it can really make you mad. I am not talking about albums reviews now. It’s a fact that you can not get review which is really opinion of the writer in any of today’s media. You can get it on websites like epinions or in some smaller mags.
XXL is not great investment of your money, it has too many ads, it features many commercial artists which are not hot as XXL claims and you do not get enough for that price. German magazine Juice is best hip-hop magazine I’d ever read, but it’s problem is that It is on German language so many people outside Germany won’t understand it.
But anyway, do not buy XXL. I would rather buy The Source which isn't great either.




@@1/2 Rounded up to epinions Three Stars


Recommended: No

Favorite Type of Music: Other