Artist: Anslem Samuel
Interviewer: Alex Fruchter

It’s not often that an independent magazine celebrates its one year anniversary. Yet that is exactly what The Ave has done, complete with a cover that boasts Nas alongside his father Olu Dara. As one of the newer hip hop magazines, The Ave is a refreshing look at hip hop as well as issues that affect hip hop culture. Not only confined to artist profiles, record reviews, and gossip columns, The Ave covers issues relevant to every facet of life from dealing with depression, to the best way to deal with the police.

After many emails, SoundSlam finally caught up with Anslem Samuel, hip hop journalist, and Editor-In-Chief of The Ave. One of the busiest men in hip hop took a 20 minute break to talk about his magazine’s one year anniversary, the ethics of journalism, and the daily grind of being a writer. Check it out.

SoundSlam: What is your day-to-day like as the head of a magazine?

Anslem: My day to day? Actually for the magazine it’s kind of like night to night. During the day I’m a writer. I’m a writer first. During the night time I’m working on the magazine pretty much. It is pretty time consuming and takes a lot of dedication, because we are independent. No office, there’s not a lot of funds we’re working with. It’s a real hustle and a real grind.

SoundSlam: You said no office; everyone’s pretty much on their own.

Anslem: Yeah. We all have full-time jobs we do in the daytime. Then we do The Ave on the side, weekends and stuff. No office space we pretty much exist online. A lot of conferences online, a lot of phone work. SoundSlam: How long have you been in journalism?

Anslem: I guess my official start was October, ‘98. I worked for the Source for 4 years till ‘02 officially.

SoundSlam: How did The Ave get started since everyone is doing their own thing during the day and putting it together at night? How did you get people on the same page to really go forward with a magazine?

Anslem: Well The Ave actually evolved from another magazine, which I’m not really going to get into. We don’t really talk about it. It kind of dissolved and we wanted to start fresh and come with a new magazine. We just got a staff, sent an email out. We got our executive Editor, Raqiyah Mays, and a couple other people and everything pretty much started from that vision. It took a while of getting together and here we are.

SoundSlam: Most magazines don’t really make it that far. It seems people are starting their own small publications all the time. How did you get through that first year and make it over that hump?

Anslem: Ummmm, I’m still trying to figure that out myself. I just really think it’s about being different and really making our niche in the market and really giving something to the public that really isn’t there yet. Our goal is to fill the gap in between other urban magazines that are out now. You’re not going to get anything in The Ave that you’re going to get in another urban magazine. We’re going to give it to you differently. And give you things you’re not going to get anywhere else pretty much. And speak to our audience directly.

SoundSlam: One thing I wanted to ask you was if you feel that the hip hop magazine field is a crowded market right now?

Anslem: I don’t know if it’s that crowded. When you think of urban magazines there’s really the big three. The three you’re going to think about, XXL, The Source, Vibe. There the ones in the upper echelon. Then after that there’s just a bunch of independent or small magazines pretty much. There’s really only three. If you look at other genres there’s much more I think. I really don’t think this market has been tapped as full as it could. There’s not as much variety as you get in other genres.

SoundSlam: You talked about The Ave giving the reader things it won’t find other places. Could you give people that might not have been able to check out The Ave some examples of what you’re talking about?

Anslem: I mean it can go from our features down to some of our small things. For instance in the last issue we had a feature story on Emmet Till. Just looking at his impact on the Civil Rights movement and how it affects the community today with things going on right now. The reason that kind of came about, people like Kanye, Remy Martin mention his name and kids might hear it and might know who the name is, but you don’t really know the history of Emmet Till. So we just took that opportunity. People in the community are talking about it, but don’t know why they’re talking about it. Let’s really break it down. He was important. The case was reopened after 50 years, so that was news right there. I mean you might look in another magazine and find a small box, or a news brief. We made it into a whole feature. We also give you tips when you’re being harassed by cops. What are your rights? What can you do? We’re basically empowering you and giving you knowledge about things that affect you in your everyday life. Beyond what this artist is wearing, how much these diamonds cost. We’re giving you a lot more substance.

SoundSlam: How is the feedback? How are readers responding to it?

Anslem: Our feedback is always great. If you look at our letters section we try to get negative letters pretty much. We aren’t just printing the positive letters, but we’re only getting positive mail. In one instance we got a negative letter, but other than that it’s positive. Whenever the magazine comes out people hit us all the time. We actually get emails from overseas. Especially in London, ‘How can I get my hands on a magazine?’ People that know about the magazine definitely love it and want to see more of it. We just don’t necessarily have the backing that could take us on a national level to enter the top three upper echelons of magazines.

SoundSlam: Do you have a piece or article you feel very proud about? A favorite piece, not necessarily the biggest but one that was just really hard to get done and you got it done?

Anslem: That probably would change every issue. Honestly every issue, when we finish a magazine we feel like, ‘damn, this is our best issue. How are we gonna top ourselves?’ We always think, ‘how are we gonna top ourselves?’ We might start on the next issue and just feel, ‘ohh, it’s ok’ but when it’s done and we’re looking at the cover and the proofs right now, I just feel like ‘damn we did it again.’ I don’t know how we do it or how it gets to this point. I wouldn’t say there’s one particular thing that I’m most proud of. We’re an independent magazine, been around less than a year at the time and we got Al Sharpton on the cover. I think that was a major thing. For our Anniversary issue we had Nas and his father. Other magazines had Nas on its cover, but they didn’t have Nas and his father. I work with other magazines. I’ve done work for .XXL, and they’re like, ‘wow. We love your cover. That cover’s great.’ There’s definitely love across the board professionally, and from the readers.

SoundSlam: Do you have a favorite interview?

Anslem: One that I can think of was actually with a former rapper turned actor. Darrell Mitchell. He was actually in House Party. I think it was House Party one and two….I interviewed him two years ago for King Magazine. He had a bike accident a couple years ago and he’s paralyzed. We vibed for like two hours, and all I needed was a 20 minute interview. We just spoke about his career as a rapper to going through experiences and being paralyzed and having his faith. It was really just a story about faith. He had his faith and he could have died on the operating table because of that. That was one of my favorite interviews.

SoundSlam: Speaking about interviewing, in journalism you’re behind the scenes. You get to meet these emcees that have these images and you realize they are real people as well. What do you think being a journalist and being inside has shown you in terms of insight towards hip hop as a culture and how it’s marketed?

Anslem: That’s a good question. I’m trying to see the best way I can answer that. Just being a journalist, as a fan you just get the record and what you see in articles. You’re sitting with an artist for half-an-hour, an hour trying to get their entire life. It’s up to you to try to then put that into words so the fan can have a glimpse into what that is. In the course of me interviewing people I see they’re regular people. In an interview you see a hardcore rapper. When you interview him you’re not gonna be like, ‘oh wow, is he gonna have his guns out? Is he gonna slap me?’ But they’re regular people. They have jokes, they have families. Sometimes you get to experience that. It depends on how good they are in their mode where they’re trying to be in character, or you can just capture that regular moment. When I interviewed Nore, his daughter and his son were around the whole time. And basically my story, when I wrote it, was about Nore being a family man. He talked about his father that had passed. We shared that moment. We looked at old baby pictures and it was just real regular, everything we all go through with someone. They’re regular people at the end of the day. Being a journalist you get to meet some of your favorite artists. As a fan that’s great, you get to meet them. But they’re regular people. It’s not like, ‘this is a super-human person.’ As far as being quote-unquote ‘industry’, you learn why certain things happen. As a fan you might be like, ‘how did this artist link up with that one?’ You can’t really figure it out. Then you might learn behind the scenes, ‘oh, they got the same management. That’s how Guerilla Black and Mario Winans are on a record together…Or, because you did this I’m gonna be on your album…’ It kind of takes a little bit of the mystery away. It’s definitely great being a journalist. We’re basically making hip hop history and documenting it. It’s great to be a part of it.

SoundSlam: How did you get into writing and become a hip hop journalist. I think this line of work is not really put out as an option or even highlighted that much. While a lot of kids that are interested in hip hop and really interested in writing do different things when this could be a really good avenue for them.

Anslem: I kind of fell into it in a certain extent. I had aspirations of being a rapper and all of that but I knew it wasn’t in the cards. I went to school. During my course of being in college I pretty much saw that if it came down to doing a paper or doing an essay I would always ace the test. Then I realized, ‘wait, I kind of have a knack for writing.’ So I minored in English real quick, then graduated with a media degree. I sent my resume to TV companies, I sent it everywhere. Just by chance The Source happened to call me back a couple months later. And that got my foot in the door and I worked my way up the ranks learning in the four years I was there, just honing my craft. I didn’t pretty much have feelings for it, I just saw that I had a natural knack for writing and made it a professional career.

SoundSlam: What advice do you have for someone that maybe reading this interview and thinking that we’re both up in some glamorous office somewhere and we get to interview emcees and it’s this glamorous thing? What advice do you have for them that just want to get started and may not realize how much hard work it would be?

Anslem: If you’re just trying to do hip hop journalism to meet your favorite rapper, then it’s still a job still, it’s still a career. I think what I do is a craft, not just anyone can do it. If you’re just coming in it for that, not with any offense, you could probably just be a groupie instead. Save yourself some time and get an easier check. This is definitely a hustle, I work. When I do an assignment for a magazine I can do it in November, it could come out in January, and I won’t get paid till February. This is what I do full-time. I’m constantly writing. It’s not just about, ‘can I meet this rapper.’ Most of my interviews are over the phone unless I’m doing a feature. I don’t want to disrespect them. I know they’re job is to be an entertainer. The interview is part of their job. I don’t want to interrupt their life and be like, ‘hey can I get your autograph?’ When you’re at a show they’re used to getting that. When doing an interview I respect it as that and I keep it moving. I might respect they’re music and I let them know that. After that we’re down to business doing the interview. As far as advice, as far as what to do, it’s really what you want to do. Be serious about it, and study your craft. I felt that I had a natural knack for writing but if I had known earlier I wish I would have taken more classes, studied writing more, especially some of the greats. Definitely reading books and different magazines is good to see different ways of writing. Once you interview an artist once, an artist that’s been around for ten years their story has been told. You as a writer gotta find a way to flip it and make it different. So definitely study your craft, like anything. If you want to be a doctor you study all the biology books you gotta study. Learn about other authors, read as much as you can. Really respect the craft.

SoundSlam: What can people look forward to in the next issue?

Anslem: In the next issue, it’s the first one of the year. It’s our best issue. Every time we do it, we do a little more. We have a special feature dedicated to Eazy-E, we got The Game and some other artists from the West Coast. This March will actually be the 10th anniversary of his [Easy-E] death, so we want to commemorate that by celebrating his life. We linked up with The Game for a cover story but rather than just talking about Compton and beefs and all that, you can get that in another cover story, we decided to take him being a big fan of Eazy-E and talk to him about Eazy-E’s influence on a musical end. We also have a leadership story basically just talking about the lack of leadership in urban communities, and where the leaders are. Ever since Martin and a lot of people passed away we’ve had a lapse. We’ve had people that could be leaders like Reverend Jesse Jackson, but do they really speak to our community? Now we have people like P. Diddy that are really rallying the people. We’re exploring that, it makes us just really look at it. We’re not saying this person is a leader or we need a leader. It’s really about us taking it upon ourselves to be like, ‘I’m responsible for me. Let me do what I need to do to serve my community better. If I don’t like the dirt on my street I shouldn’t be waiting for someone else to clean it, let me try to get up and do it myself, organize my own stuff.’ Instead of playing Grand Theft Auto all day I can go outside and sweep the corner. Those are two highlights I can think of, but a lot of great stuff. I don’t want to give away all the goodies….

SoundSlam: Talking about being a journalist and being professional do you think that some of what has happened at The Source, and we don’t need to rehash what has happened, do you think they’re overstepping their job as just journalists and going a bit too far?

Anslem: Me personally I don’t want to speak specifically about that situation because I used to work there and I have friends there. I can just speak in general terms on the subject in general. The purpose of a journalist is to be objective. You’re not there to take sides. You’re there to report on what’s going on. If there’s any bias in what you’re doing then it’s not really journalism in that aspect. Every issue we do for The Ave I might have a personal feeling on someone else, a writer might have a feeling, but I always want to make sure there’s a balance so it’s not just one side. When you’re one-sided you defeat your purpose. You almost become attacking and over-bearing with trying to force your mission down someone’s throat. If you lay the cards on the table, ‘this is what this guy says, this is what this guys says,’ the readers will make their decision. If you only show one side and have a personal vendetta or something like that then it’s just kind of like, ‘I’m not gonna listen to you cause I know what you’re gonna say.’ But that’s me talking in general.

For more info or to cop a subscription please visit www.theavemagazine.com