David Mays

David Mays is a pioneer in the field of Hip Hop journalism. Dave Mays has created numerous hip hop magazines throughout his career.He co-founded "The Source" magazine, Hip Hop Weekly and is preparing the launch of Monsta Magazine.

David Mays started The Source Magazine in 1988 as a single sheet newsletter while a Harvard undergraduate. By the time he graduated, he had built The Source into a national magazine. While hosting the Boston area’s first rap music program on the Harvard radio station, Mays met Ray Scott, a local musical performer and producer, who eventually became his partner at The Source. Scott’s roots in the hip hop community kept the message authentic. From the early days, the team had the vision to see that hip hop would become the cultural touchstone of their generation, just as rock and roll was for the previous generation. They set out to make The Source become the Rolling Stone of the ‘90s. The Source became the largest selling music magazine on newsstands in the U.S., outselling even its model, Rolling Stone, on the stands.

Mays and Scott used their business acumen to build a stable of media companies around the Source brand, including a record label, mobile content downloads and a clothing line. They produced a talk show, a talent showcase and several seasons of The Source Hip Hop Music Awards, some of the highest rated TV specials for a hip-hop audience ever.

GQ Magazine’s 50th anniversary issue (October 2007) called The Source one of the “27 Things that Changed Men’s Lives” over the last 50 years—along with the remote control, Nintendo, Viagra and the Pill, text messaging and ESPN’s SportsCenter: “Rarely has a magazine played a more dynamic role in the culture it reflected than the hip-hop rag The Source. Throughout the ’90s, the magazine had the first and last word in r

Details Magazine named David Mays one of the 50 most influential men under 37 in its October 2002 issue.

In January 2007 David Mays and Ray Scott founded Hip Hop Weekly, the first celebrity magazine directed to a hip-hop loving audience. Hip Hop Weekly has grown steadily since its inception. It is carried by major newsstands, bookstores, superstores, drugstore chains and convenience stores like Seven-Eleven, where it consistently sells in the top 20% out of 60 publications carried by the chain. In October 2007 Hip Hop Weekly was recognized by the prestigious MIN Awards as one of the top 15 new magazines of the year, out of more than 700 startups.

Dave Mays and Ray Scott are preparing the launch of Monsta, in early 2009.

Dave Mays is currently in talks with various book publishers to release his book based on his experiences as co-founder of The Source magazine.

* [http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=881376753] Mays and Benzino talk about Hip Hop Weekly