No More Smut At The Source...

So I saw in The New York Times today that The Source Magazine, the original monthly Hip Hop publication that's had pretty shitty luck over the last few years, is no longer going to be accepting advertisements from pornographic films, pornographic Web sites or escort services even though those ads usually account for half of the ads in the magazine.

Yes, half.



L. Londell McMillan, the co-publisher who bought The Source in 2008 with a group of investors was quoted as saying:

"I think when you have the more raunchy, seedy ads, you lose ads like financial services ads, some of the travel ads, the bigger corporate consumer ads like McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, technology, high fashion.”

gee, ya think? Clearly this dude is a genius.

And I was being facetious but really, dude really is a genius. In business at least.

According to The AM Law Daily (That's right, I read EVERYTHING) he's the head of the entertainment, media, and sports group at the mega international law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf where his clients include Prince, Stevie Wonder, Usher, Michael Jackson, Kanye West, and the estate of Sammy Davis, Jr. as well as corporate clients including The New York Times, The Discovery Channel, and Mercedes Benz.

He's also a business partner of real estate developer Bruce Ratner and Jay-Z on their efforts to bring the New Jersey Nets basketball team to Brooklyn and that's big.

I mostly only read Hip Hop magazines when I'm at the supermarket these days and the amount of ads for porno (and I don't mean ads for sex chat lines that feature scantily clad broads in them, I mean full blown, xxx, money shot, smut films) are ridiculous. I almost felt embarrassed reading it in the line at the market.

And not just because there was porn in it, but also because Lil' Bow Wow was on the cover.

still, clearly there's about to be some huge changes over there, hopefully it's not too little too late because I think it would be cool to see magazines make a comeback.

I love an underdog.