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The Vibe magazine cover


Enrico
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https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/8477004/vibe-magazine-oral-history

Mimi Valdes (editorial assistant, 1993-94; assistant editor, 1994-95; style editor, 1997-98; executive editor, 1999-2002; editor-at-large, 2002-03; editor-in-chief, 2004-06): Jonathan booked Madonna and Dennis Rodman as a cover. And Eddie Murphy’s publicist was mad as hell that Madonna was getting the cover over Eddie. We all wanted Eddie over Madonna, so we were upset about it too. When [word of the cover choice] started to get out in the industry, we all felt the need to save Vibe’s reputation.

Poulson-Bryant: I said [to Jonathan], “The staff needs to have a conference. People are really not happy about this.”

Van Meter: I said, “This isn't The Village Voice. We’re not unionized. You can’t come in here representing the staff.”

Valdes: We were all standing by waiting for Scott to give us the go-ahead to come in. When Jonathan saw us, he got really upset.

Van Meter: I felt like I was losing control. And I said [to Scott], “You’re fired.” People in the hallways started crying. Mimi Valdes was screaming as if she’d just found out her mother was shot and killed. And I was like, “Oh, my God, I made it worse.”

Poulson-Bryant: He came to my office: “You’re not fired. Look, we’ll have a staff meeting.”

Jones: I was staying away from editorial policy. I got involved when Jonathan put the Beastie Boys on the cover and told me he was following up with Dennis Rodman and Madonna. He had already shot it!

Van Meter: I guess Quincy was getting a lot of shit from people for putting the Beastie Boys on the cover, and when he sees the Madonna cover, he went crazy.

Jones: I said, “Over my dead fucking body! That’s the way you blow an urban magazine.”

Van Meter: Madonna was queen. You can’t not put her on the cover. I couldn't conceive of killing the best cover story we had done so far. [Quincy and I] ended up having a fight on the phone, and I smashed my phone into a thousand pieces and cleared off the top of my desk onto the floor. I think I said, “I quit.” I went home. And then the phone calls started. Everyone tried to get Quincy to change his mind. Even Madonna called me at home. She was really pissed.

Jones: I called Madonna and I said, “I’m telling you as a friend: it’s not personal, but you cannot pander with an urban magazine this early.” She said, “Quincy Jones, you and I can take over the world if we want to. See you around, pal.” I haven’t talked to her since then.

Van Meter: No one could get Quincy to change his mind. Carol Smith and Robin Wolaner called and said, “Just get as much money as you can and walk away.” By the way, I think it was a terrible idea that they hired me. I look back now and realize how incredibly naive I was.

Valdes: For all the criticism he got, Jonathan really established the tone and the vision for the magazine. We had a research department. We had a fact-checking department. A photo department. Our art department was top-notch. He created a beautiful magazine.

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10 hours ago, NowRadiate said:

So much hassle about one magazine cover. Far removed from the real world. But that’s the business.

The elephant in the room: racism? A white chick stealing a black brother. Racism can go both ways. 

The cover looks way cool. Does anyone really remember what Eddie Murphy‘s cover looks like?

I would be curious to see the cover that ran in the end as well!

EDIT: 

Not a remarkable cover :Madonna003:

06_07.94-compressed.jpg

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10 hours ago, NowRadiate said:

So much hassle about one magazine cover. Far removed from the real world. But that’s the business.

The elephant in the room: racism? A white chick stealing a black brother. Racism can go both ways. 

The cover looks way cool. Does anyone really remember what Eddie Murphy‘s cover looks like?

The point was that they didn't want a white pop star on the cover after having a white group in it, on a black magazine. It's about representation and not anything else. :cryin: They have every right to put black artists first.

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19 hours ago, NowRadiate said:

Representation or racism. Both intertwine all the time.

And yet it has a lot more to do with branding than anything else. No different than a death metal magazine refusing to put Madonna on the cover, she doesn't fit in with their image. The Beastie Boys were at least a rap group. 

No different than readers of Out and Advocate Mags complaining constantly that too many straight people end up on the cover. Though I guess you can see that as bigotry by their readership.

Vibe was new and needed to establish itself, Quincy also stated he was open to Madonna appearing later, once Vibe was off the ground and had established itself. In the beginning they wanted to establish a certain image and culture, I see no issue with that. If you want to see it as racism, I guess you can.

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5 hours ago, me1981 said:

And yet it has a lot more to do with branding than anything else. No different than a death metal magazine refusing to put Madonna on the cover, she doesn't fit in with their image. The Beastie Boys were at least a rap group. 

No different than readers of Out and Advocate Mags complaining constantly that too many straight people end up on the cover. Though I guess you can see that as bigotry by their readership.

Vibe was new and needed to establish itself, Quincy also stated he was open to Madonna appearing later, once Vibe was off the ground and had established itself. In the beginning they wanted to establish a certain image and culture, I see no issue with that. If you want to see it as racism, I guess you can.

A part of the discussion clearly revolves around racism. I was an avid reader of Vibe myself. Madonna was very much flirting with RnB and urban themes (Madonna, Erotica, Bestime Stories?) at that time. Far off from her electronica phase. It’s about representation of black artists and culture, alright, when its necessity in itself is a product of a racist society. Don’t try to tell me that the folks giving Quincy shit for showing the Beastie Boys on the front cover harbor not the slightest bit of racism. I have always been surrounded by black Americans, friends and family - a mixed couple still rubs people the wrong way. Black and white. I’m saying the whole story reeks of that kind of racism. 

Watch Dear White People. So accurate and so unmasking of the racisms on any side there is.

In a perfect workd, it wouldn’t have mattered if you feature a caucasian person on a magazine twice in a row. Or any ethnicity for that matter. I’m replacing racism with “discrimination against ethnicities”. I hate the term race. There is only one anyway with humans: the human race.

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4 hours ago, NowRadiate said:

In a perfect workd, it wouldn’t have mattered if you feature a caucasian person on a magazine twice in a row. Or any ethnicity for that matter. I’m replacing racism with “discrimination against ethnicities”. I hate the term race. There is only one anyway with humans: the human race.

I agree, but that is the problem. The racism in the enertainment industry helped create Vibe, if Black artists and culture had been covered in mainstream media with equality, then Vibe would not have exsisted. It was a response to such things.

So creating a magazine to promote black culture, because there is a gap in the mainstream, and putting white artists on it who have had more than enough exposure, and in the case of Madonna, do not represent the culture you are trying to reflect, is going against the very thing Vibe was created for. 

Yes, if we lived in a utopia, Vibe would never have been needed, nor would Advocate or so many others. 

This is why I think this is more than just a "she's white" issue. It was about maintaining the representation, which means they would always prefer Black artists, as they were trying to fill the gap created by the mostly white straight media at that time.

I don't deny there is racism in every culture, but that doesn't mean it is reflected in every single person or event. 

I personally think Madonna with Rodman was perfectly fine, but I also see this story from a different angle.

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