Dave Mays: Etched In Stone

Since Ray "Benzino" Scott's silent partnership in The Source went public in 2001, Dave Mays has been a made man with the problems to match. Rumors about sexual harassment at The Source offices and a physical altercation with Busta Rhymes ran contrary to the portrait of a man who had rocked the backdrop for 15 years to build one of the largest platforms in hip-hop. When Mays was ousted as CEO of the magazine in early 2006, many wondered if he had lost sight of his role in the industry.

But Mays is not one to dwell in the past. On October 16, he and Benzino publicly renewed their partnership and hopped back into the publishing game with Hip Hop Weekly, a glossy tabloid that brings heat to hip-hop with a format that emphasizes the mainstream star-power of the rap world. The magazine is backed by Hip Hop Global Media, of which Mays is now CEO, and features columns by Wendy Williams and Star & Buc Wild.

As Hip Hop Weekly hit newsstands nationwide, Ballerstatus caught up with the controversial magazine magnate to talk about his relationship with Benzino, the corporate takeover of hip-hop culture, and why back issues of The Source will still be read 100 years from now.

Ballerstatus.com: I heard you're a fellow DC native, can you talk about how that influenced you growing up?

Dave Mays: DC, as you probably know, was way behind in terms of hip-hop in those days, and -- to a degree -- still is today because of go-go music. To be honest, when I was younger in the '70s and early '80s, I was a lot more into go-go than hip-hop. The only hip-hop I knew was stuff that made it on the radio down there -- stuff like "Rapper's Delight," Kurtis Blow "The Breaks." It wasn't until I went to college up in Boston that I got into hip-hop in much more depth. But being in a big city like DC and going through the public school system, that was where my interest and love for black music as a whole started. I grew up listening to a lot of R&B as well as go-go music when I was younger.

Ballerstatus.com: Were there any specific moments that you experienced or MCs that you heard that really pulled you deeper into the culture, or was a just a gradual process?

Dave Mays: I mean, when I heard "Rapper's Delight" for the first time, in 5th or 6th grade, I can remember just loving that record. Out on the playground at Murch, running around at recess rapping the lyrics. I got into Run DMC a lot around '83, '84 with "Rock Box." But, really taking it to the next level was just sort of natural. When I got to Harvard, I started the first real hip-hop show on the campus station there. The show was officially a go-go/hip-hop show, you know? I had all my go-go tapes and everything. I was playing it on the radio and people were calling in like, "What the hell is this? Turn this garbage off. We hate this!" So that pretty much accelerated my involvement in hip-hop because the community up there in Boston had no interest in go-go. So, slowly but surely the show became 100% hip-hop.

Ballerstatus.com: Who are you feeling these days?

Dave Mays: I'm ashamed to say I'm not really that musically diverse. I pretty much listen still to R&B and hip-hop, a little reggae here and there. But hip-hop wise, right now? Nas' new album, The Game, Fat Joe's new album, Jay-Z...

Ballerstatus.com: Favorite record of '06?

Dave Mays: Rick Ross "Hustlin'" comes to mind.

Ballerstatus.com: Taking it back to Boston, how did you hook up with Benzino? Presumably, he didn't spend much time on the Harvard campus...

Dave Mays: I had the radio show every Friday night on the Harvard station and I had a lot of listeners in the Boston area. I was trying to get involved in the local scene and I kept hearing about this group Almighty RSO. They won a Boston Music Award in 1987 when I had just got started doing my show and I kept hearing about them. One day I found out they were going to be live at a radio station at Emerson College, so I decided to pop up there and that was the first time I met Ray and the rest of his crew. Jeff Two Times, who at that time was known as Deff Jeff, was the DJ of the group and is still with us today. They produce collectively as the Hangman 3. So, we all kind of met at that point. And actually me and Jeff were the ones who hit it off at first and he became the DJ on my radio show sophomore year. From there, we just became friends and started hanging out more in the city rather than just on campus.

Ballerstatus.com: You and Ray would go on to become a notorious duo in hip-hop, and I don't want to dwell on things dead and buried, but I was wondering how you feel about the partnership right now as you start up this new Hip Hop Weekly venture. How do you think your relationship with Benzino has affected you, both professionally and in your personal life?

Dave Mays: He's my brother, you know? He's like a big brother to me. He's two years older and has a little more experience in the world and wisdom in some things. We have a tremendous amount of respect for one another. I'm more of the office, execution type of person who gets things done, and he's more out in the field and in the streets. The vision and the creative side. So, the two sets of skills that we have really match up nicely. He's a great business partner; I wouldn't have any other person in the world replace him. So, I think it's a great relationship that's grown and matured. When you go through all the ups and the downs together, and all the good times and bad times and you're still standing strong, I think that shows a lot. You can't replace all that. Even what we've learned over the past few years with leaving The Source -- well, basically being forced out of there -- we've found that really there was just me and him at the end of the day. A lot of people we thought were our friends or thought were down with us were really only there when they felt like things were going well. When things took a turn for the worse, it was really just me and him, and that's just strengthened our relationship even more as we go forward with this new venture.

Ballerstatus.com: Being in the unique position of being both a player in the publishing industry and sort of removed from the fray, and then also being so involved with someone who is part of the culture from a musical standpoint, what do you think has improved and deteriorated in hip-hop since you first got involved?

Dave Mays: It's an evolution like anything else. The culture is constantly evolving and it goes through better times and worse times, but I think that there has been progress over the years. It's progressing and will continue to do so. Obviously, the global appeal of the culture is one of the big differences and improvements, and the awareness and acceptance of the culture by the corporate world and more of the mainstream business community has definitely improved from when I first started. I guess on the negative side, I just think we've gone through a period -- over the past five or six years -- where the culture kind of got stunted a little bit in terms of its growth and the influence of big corporations and the type of money that started to get involved with the culture of hip-hop. When you're dealing with hundreds of millions, and really billions of dollars that the culture is generating, you get a lot of big companies involved and those companies are used to doing things in certain ways. And I think that's had a bad effect on the culture in some ways.

There's nothing wrong with the culture becoming more commercially accepted, but in terms of the music in particular, it went from something that was being created from the artistry and creativity and honest feelings of different MCs and producers to being something that is being driven more and more by the radio, music videos, and corporations. I think that's hurt the creative development of the music to a degree, but it's a resilient culture. It can't be bottled up entirely into a little formula that some big corporation can contain. Ultimately the culture will survive and I think we're starting to see a return to the music and a little more artistry and freedom of expression.

Ballerstatus.com: What role do you think the big magazines like XXL, Vibe and The Source play in that trend of commercialization? Do you see them as more of a chronicler than a shaper of the culture?

Dave Mays: The only magazine that has really been a force and a shaper in the culture has been The Source. We were that force for a long time in '90s. I've said this before, that I think in the late '90s and early 2000, I did lose sight of our role in the culture and we sort of fit into that commercialization a little bit with the magazine and I think that hurt us and wasn't the right thing to do. But that changed, and with us being gone from The Source, I don't think it's the same at all and it's lost a lot of its flavor and identity. And the other magazines are much more formulaic and have just pretty much copied The Source, so I don't think they were ever really shapers of the culture. I would say The Source, during our heyday, we could have done more to have an effect on that [commercial trend], but ultimately it is bigger than one magazine or media outlet. There's a much bigger set of forces that would have driven the music into that sort of situation regardless.

Ballerstatus.com: So what's the deal with Hip Hop Weekly? Why did you think it was time to switch to the more frequent format of a weekly glossy?

Dave Mays: I'm very exited about the new publication. I'm very confident that this is going to change the media game as far as hip-hop goes, and it's going to change the culture. I think we can rise to that level of influence as the magazine as the brand grows in the next few years. The monthly magazine, in its current format, is quickly becoming a dinosaur. The information is stale. We're in a world that has changed a lot with new media like internet and mobile and e-mail...

Ballerstatus.com: You gotta keep up with the Ballerstatus.com's of the world...

Dave Mays: Yeah, it's a much faster pace in terms of how information gets out to people. For a monthly, it's very difficult to stay relevant because people can read things online and find information a lot more quickly than they did in the past. I think a weekly or bi-weekly frequency, which is where we're at right now, allows you to stay right on the pulse of what's happening and we're gonna keep getting more relevant as times goes on. With our presence in the marketplace, it just makes it even harder for the monthlies to compete because we're on top of everything months before they could even cover the story. Also the format of the magazine is a faster read. It's shorter, more concise, more picture-driven. It's more in tune with the way people are today. People are busy, they don't have as much time and they want to get their information more quickly. It also has a lot broader of an appeal.

The Source and a lot of the magazines that tried to follow our blueprint have got stuck trying to appeal to very fractionalized part of the market. Hip-hop in the United States alone is a culture that's consumed by close to 40 million people under the age of 40. It's now spanning an entire generation, and the core audience that was once the driving force of hip-hop culture is just not as relevant anymore in a day and age when the culture is mainstream and mass-market. So, the format fits the market much better because many more people who would not pick up another hip-hop magazine will pick this up. This format is attractive to them because it's fresh and new and doesn't have this feeling where you have to know every lyric to every song on the last three Gangstarr albums to actually be interested in the magazine.

Ballerstatus.com: The weekly glossy is a genre dominated by celebrity-fueled entertainment mags. Do you feel that this is making a statement like, "Hey, the 50 Cents and T.I.s of the world as are big as the Justin Timberlake's and Paris Hiltons now?"

Dave Mays: There's definitely a part of the model that we're working with that's based around those celebrity weeklies like US Magazine and In Touch, because there's definitely a fascination with celebrities and their lifestyles and what they're wearing and driving and talking about, [and] the gossip of what's going on with different celebrities. So that's definitely an aspect of the formula that we've created with this new magazine.

Ballerstatus.com: The Source always seemed to have a pretty clear political bent during your tenure there. Will this magazine address certain issues that you think are relevant to hip-hop?

Dave Mays: Yes, we've already begun to include some social and political content in the magazine. But it's an entertainment magazine, so we don't go too heavy with that stuff. We're certainly going to keep that element and, as you said, that was something that was always very defining about The Source. We covered a lot of social and political issues that weren't covered by the mainstream media. It's hard to pinpoint one or two issues that are "relevant," because you're talking about a group spanning an entire generation now, basically anyone under the age of 40. So, what are the things that affect them in their lives and what are the issues that concern them? Well, it could be any issue that affects 40 million people, you know?

Ballerstatus.com: It seems you're never safe from rumor and innuendo, and there has already been some talk on various sites and message boards about you guys bringing on Mimi Valdez, the former Editor-in-Chief of Vibe, and then getting rid of her?

Dave Mays: Well she actually never really got started. We brought her in over the summer and were beginning to work with her on our first issue and then we both decided to split. There was no problem or anything, she just decided to go a different direction with her career and it was a mutual decision. She wasn't even involved with the first issue in October, so that's old news.

Ballerstatus.com: One of the things that got a lot of press back at The Source was Benzino's beef with Eminem. What type of editorial decisions went on there and how do you feel that positioned The Source in terms of being a responsible media outlet?

Dave Mays: Let me say a couple things. Whatever beefs we've had in the past stay in the past. We're starting with a clean slate and we've been covering everyone in the magazine from Eminem to 50 Cent to any and everybody we may have had disagreements with in the past few years. Most of those people have actually reached out to me in the past couple of months to say, "Hey, I love what you're doing, I want to support it, let's move forward." So that's the most important thing. In terms of the other part of your question, The Source's place in history has been established. It will be talked about and read about hundreds of years from now -- The Source magazine and what Dave and Benzino did to build that icon for 18 years. And the reason that we're a part of history is our integrity and our ability to have integrity in an industry that sometimes does not have the highest level of integrity. Whether people agreed or disagreed with our positions on certain issues that came up in the past few years and maybe how we reacted to those issues when they escalated, it's very difficult to challenge the integrity of what we did journalistically there for 18 years. It's too much etched in stone to question that.

Ballerstatus.com: Some critics suggested that it wasn't just Eminem, but white rap in general that suffered in The Source's hands. Is there any truth to that or do you think it's a fallacy?

Dave Mays: Ummm... [laughs]. It's a fallacy. I mean, that's crazy. We made Eminem, you know? We helped start his career and he was the first white rapper to be on the cover of the magazine and he won Source Awards. Anyone white in the business has always received great treatment in our magazine, so I think that's just something that people... basically Eminem has a lot of loyal fans and when we got into a disagreement, people took his side because they were fans of his and from that, all kinds of theories and rumors came out of it. But, our track record is there. You've got 200 issues over 18 years to go read and see what our positions were on these things.

Ballerstatus.com: Do you have any personal feelings on being white in hip-hop culture from your experiences?

Dave Mays: Has it affected me? Yeah, of course. Race has an affect on a lot of things in our society and it is what it is, so to say it hasn't had an effect would be foolish. But in general, hip-hop is a culture where we don't look at each other in terms of skin color and race. That's one of the greatest parts of the culture, that it's been one of the most powerful tools ever to destroy racism. Since the Civil Rights movement, what has had a greater effect on destroying racism and creating positive race relations than hip-hop? I think that's just one of the great things about the culture that it's open and brings people together and if you're true to yourself, you can do whatever you want in the culture -- White, black, brown, Asian, yellow, what have you. You can accomplish anything. And that's been proven through what I've done and what people from all sorts of different backgrounds have accomplished in the hip-hop field.

Ballerstatus.com: So have you been watching "The (White) Rapper Show" on Vh1?

Dave Mays: No, I have not.

Ballerstatus.com: Ok...In that case, if you were going to cast a Hip-Hop Survivor reality show, who would you put on the island other than yourself and Benzino?

Dave Mays: I don't know. I've never even watched "Survivor."

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