The Representation of Men and Women in Rap

The rap genre is becoming more and more popular as the years go on, and it seems to be gradually taking over the charts. Rap consists of both male and female artists, however there is a strong dominance of the male sex. This influences the target audience, therefore creating a fan base of mainly males, but this isn't to say that females can't enjoy rap music. There is still a huge number of young females who enjoy this genre just as much as the young males. In the rap industry majority of rap artists are male, for example there is Kendrick Lamar, Tyga, 2 Chainz, Tinie Tempah, Lil Wayne - the list is endless. On the female side of things we have artists like Nicki Minaj, Lil Kim and Rihanna can come under this category, but the amount of female rap artists is very limited. However, this is acceptable in a genre like rap because a lot of the time between 2-5 rappers join up to create a collaboration of their music and taste in one song, which shows to be very popular with the target audience.

The rap genre can be very controversial with audiences who don't like it. This is because rap music is quite sexualised, it's not for very young people as it's not appropriate and this creates an argument about the right/appropriate age to be listening to this type of music. Another argument is that some people think that the lyrics in the songs don't have meaning to them as they just talk about sex and crime. This may be the case for some but certainly not for all, a lot of rappers like to talk about their life experiences in their songs that could hopefully be influential and inspiring to others. Although, another argument is that it doesn't matter what the rappers talk about in their music, it's there to be enjoyed by whoever enjoys it, and I am one of those people.

I think at the moment the rap industry is on it's way up, a lot more songs are already becoming featured in the charts and becoming more and more popular with the audiences who enjoy pop music as now, the two genres are beginning to overlap. Nowadays you will most likely hear a song that has a stereotypical pop chorus and rap verses, and this is how the rap industry have gained a wider audience and therefore are becoming one of the top genres.

The negatives with the rap industry is the fact that the explicit music is available to young children on YouTube and other websites, even radios play this music and although the swear words and inappropriate language is blanked out, the remains of the sentence isn't and it is so easy to tell what the sentence means and before long, young children will be singing it out loud and in my opinion, that is inappropriate and something I think people should work harder on to avoid.

Mood Board

This is my mood board based around the rap genre. As you can see I have included a lot of music magazines from Vibe and from XXL, this is because this is the layout I want to include in my music magazine when I come to make it. I also chose these images as they all have the key colours which I want to have throughout my magazine - red, white and black. Furthermore, I like the covers of these magazines because they feature a main artist on the front, then include more information about other artists inside. For my music magazine I want to also have one main image on the front and then talk about other artists and news on the inside.

With the images of the double pages spreads, I like how there is again, one big photo on one side of the double page and then on the other there is the story or the interview. Because my music magazine will be targeted at older teenagers, I don't need the same layout as somebody who is making a magazine for the pop genre as this type of magazine doesn't need lots of bright colours jumping out at people to attract them over, this is more of a mature way of drawing in the attention of readers.

Thinking of a Concept

Group Analysis of Double Page Spreads

In one of our lessons we were split up into small groups and everybody analysed 3 images of double page spreads from some music magazines. Looking at these double page spreads not only gave me ideas for my own music magazine about what sorts of information to include and what layout to use, but it also enabled me to look at other peoples views and analysis's and incorporate it into my own work, because everyone else's analysis was different to mine in some way which helped my understanding of the double page spreads a little more.

Research into different audiences

For each genre of music there is an associated target audience.

Pop

The pop genre carries a target audience of both girls and boys, however mainly young/teenage girls. Women are definitely more dominant in the pop industry and they tower over the male artists, this is one reason why the target audience is mainly young girls. Pop is the most common and wide spread music genre and has an E demographic as mainly students and young people listen to it. The average ages range between 12-24 and majority are females.

Rap

Rap is becoming more and more popular as the years go by and is a genre enjoyed by a huge variety of people. Again, rap has a main demographic of E as it's main target audience is young male students. It mainly focuses on stories about life and crime, which young people can relate to.

Rock

Rock music is a very widespread genre and therefore has a huge variety of audiences and rock also has a lot of sub-genres. However the main target audience associated with rock is older males, with a demographic of C1/2, but with the sub-genres containing indie music, it attracts a younger teenage audience with a mixture of boys and girls.

Country

Country music carries a target audience between 18-54 year olds, meaning that it is a very widespread genre with a big variety of audiences. However it's main audience ranges between 25-45 year olds. People who listen to country music are generally in the top part of the demographic scale, for example the A/B. Over the last 2 years country music has become more popular because of world famous artists like Taylor Swift, who also overlaps in the pop industry.

Reggae

The reggae genre secured it's place in the music industry during the 60s and 70s. The main target audience for reggae were the poor working class Jamaicans, however it soon spread widely throughout the world and is still enjoyed today by a wide range of ages and races.

Music Magazines in a shop

I went to my local corner shop and took images of the music magazines placed along the shelf. As you can see from left to right the featured genres are pop and rock. This tells me that locally, these are the most popular and most listened to genres because this shop lacked variety in music magazines. However the most well known magazines from these genres were on show, for example you can see NME and Top of the Pops magazine.

I have individual images of these magazines which I am going to analyse in further detail below.

This is Shout magazine, it is a pop magazine aimed at young teenage girls. This is clear from the colours and images used on the front cover - pink being a colour stereotypically associated with young girls. Also in the magazine there are make up bits and pieces.

This is a good way of getting the magazine to sell because young girls are so interested in their role models and they are always seeing them with make up on and looking really pretty, and it inspires them to be like them as much as possible. The magazine cover is also packed with lots of information about the content which is intriguing to the young audience, showing them that there is lots to read about, as well as getting the 'goodies'.



This is Top of the Pops magazine, another very popular and well known brand featured on the shelves of shops. Again, the target audience is young/teenage girls. This is obvious from the colours used throughout the cover. There is a consistent theme of pink and the fact that there is One Direction on the front shows an attractive image for young girls. This is also clear because of the layout of the magazine - it's not consistent and it being jumbled up attracts the readers' eye to every part of the magazine all at once which intrigues them to look inside.

Top of the Pops magazine also supply 'goodies' which, as I said above helps the magazine to sell. Some girls only buy the magazine for the 'goodies' inside but at the end of the day this doesn't matter for Top of the Pops because it helps and boosts their sales.


This is a music magazine featuring the genre of Rock. NME is a very popular and well known magazine to a lot of people and it has a target audience of mainly males. NME's main feature colour is red, this could represent the genre of rock because of the power it has, there is also yellow on the cover of this magazine to create a strong contrast to attract the audience and possible new readers.

This is obviously a special issue of NME as it features the 50 best albums and tracks of 2013. I like the idea of including a chart list with lots of information about different artists to keep the readers interested, and I think the more content you can get packed in, the better it is for the younger audiences who are easily distracted.



This is Rock magazine, a very popular music magazine for it's target audience of older men. It is clear that Rock magazine is targeted at older men because of the artists featured on the front. They're middle aged men and it reflects the target audience because older men are less likely to want to read a music magazine about younger rock bands/artists who are knew to the industry, they're going to want to read about there favourite bands/artists who they've grown up with.

This music magazine is very traditional looking with a straight forward and stereotypical layout, this again emphasises the target audience because older people don't need bright colours and interesting layouts to draw them in.

The white title against the black background creates a strong contrast. Even though black and white aren't bright colours they compliment each other where by they help the other one to stand out to the readers.





Overall the Top of the Pops magazine and the NME magazine have influenced me a lot and helped me to be a step closer to figuring out what my music magazine will look like. I like the idea this issue of NME magazine had, where they included a chart list and information about lots of different artists, and I also liked how the Top of the Pops magazine use lots of colours to reflect their target audience and include lots of intriguing snippets of the content on the cover.

Research into Institutions

This is the logo for Bauer Media, it is a division of the Bauer Media Group which is Europe's largest privately owned publishing group. Bauer Media is known all over the world offering over 300 magazines in 15 countries, as well as online, TV and radio.

Bauer Media joined the group in January 2008 and collectively they employ around 6,400 people. Bauer Media is a multi platform UK-based media group consisting of many companies collected around two main divisions - Magazines and Radio.

Bauer began publishing magazines in the UK with names such as 'Bella' in 1987, and it soon became one of Britain's largest publishers. Bauer then expanded even further in the UK regarding the purchase of Emap Consumer Media and Radio in 2008 meaning that they then became the biggest publishing group in the UK.


NME first started publishing in 1952 as a music magazine in newspaper form, over the years it went through some changes, gradually transforming into a traditional looking magazine. NME was the very first British newspaper to include the top music charts.

NME mainly features rock music but with an overlap of pop, and in 1996 NME first opened up online so that the popular magazine could become even more popular with access from other sources like the Internet, this was better suited to people who didn't want physical copies, or who just didn't have the time to buy the magazine from a local shop.


Immediate Media Company is a company which was established in 2011 by merging together with Origin Publishing.

Magicalia was established in 1999 and is a digital cross-media publisher, it mainly works in retail and also in e-commerce.

BBC Magazines was a commercial subsidiary of BBC. They published magazines such as the 'Radio Times' and 'Country File' for the adultery audience, 'It's Hot' and 'Top of the Pops' were published for teenagers and then educational and pre-school magazines were for an even younger audience. This is a big advantage for BBC Magazines, as they include all demographic audiences and therefore open themselves to a whole variety of different people.

Analysis of Double Page Spreads

This is an image of a double page spread from a music magazine, and it features Florence Welch from the band 'Florence and the Machine'. The colours on the magazine all revolve around the main subject, the red is a similar shade to Florence's hair which creates a strong constrast with the dull background. The title 'got the love' is lyrics to a song written by Florence and the Machine which is how it links to the image.

On double page spreads, the main subject is never placed in the centre of the magazine, this is because it doesn't create a very good composition, although it's in the middle it would unbalance the image and not create a path for readers to follow. Placing the subject to one side of the magazine and having writing on the other balances out the composition better and generally creates a more interesting layout. It is clear that this magazine isn't for the younger audience because the layout is quite straight forward with little variation in the text. The style of writing also looks quite sophisticated and neat whereas in a magazine targeted at a younger audience there would most likely be 'childlike' writing that has a curly style and big variation with lots of images.

Also Florence is sitting on a cloth with the American flag on it, which links to the title 'USA' in the background. This could suggest that Florence and the Machine have become famous in the USA, also telling me that this is what the article/interview is about.

This double paged spread is from a magazine targeted at younger teenage girls. I know this because of the colours used throughout. There isa common scheme of pink and red which are two very contrasting colours which attracts the eye of young girls. Another reason why it's clear that this magazine is for teenage girls is the variation in writing style and colour. The fonts are funky and a style that would appeal to younger girls, just like the colours. Also there is lots of images on the double pages, all of them are relevant to the topic of the article being N-Dubz. Having lots of images in a magazine, especially with this layout emphasises the target audience as this is what is stereotypically in a magazine like Top of the Pops. Magazines like this like to include key quotes in bigger and brighter writing to get the reader to read this page.

Also including pictures of topless/good looking males makes girls want to read the magazine and get the latest gossip as well as the latest music updates. Top of the Pops appeals to its target audience very well, as well as including information on the latest music tastes, it includes information about the artists themselves which would be in a usual gossip magazine, but by combining the two into one it widens the target audience for this particular magazine.

This is another double page spread from a magazine similar to the Top of the Pops one above. This double page spread features Justin Bieber, a very popular worldwide artist which young girls are obsessed with. The fact that he is talking about bullying in this issue of the magazine shows that he goes through the same things as young people today, it also shows that he is just a normal young boy although people look up to him as an inspiring role model, he is really is just like everyone else.

This is a very old issue as Justin Bieber is a lot older now. But the way he is posing and the props he has emphasises again the target audience, he has school books and a basketball which is stereotypically what American boys carry in school.

The main colour used is blue, with some black. As well as being bright and contrasting it is a colour mainly associated with young boys, like Justin Bieber. The purpose of having a white background makes the whole double page spread stand out more because it appears brighter and more appealing for the target audience. This double page spread also includes key quotes said during the interview that are purposely made bigger so that when the reader turns to this page, they can have a brief insight and an idea as to what this section of the magazine is talking about and then be intrigued to read the rest.

Analysis of Contents Pages

This is the contents page for Top of the Pops magazine. It continues with the bright coloured theme, especially with the colour pink which is suited to the stereotypical target audience of young teenage girls. The contents page is playful and exactly what young girls would like. It's not a boring layout, there is a lot of variation with the font, style and size of text and images. It is also set out with a random template, this creates the illusion that there is more to look at, it is also more appealing to the eye as there is lots of places to look and it doesn't guide the eye to a particular part of the magazine first. The layout of magazines is very important, especially this music magazine where the target audience is young girls who are easily influenced. If the layout was plain, organised and full of words it would immediately draw away the target audiences' attention and they won't be interested. Which is why it's important to have a fun layout and a fun font with bright colours to maintain the attention and attraction. 

The presence of attractive males appeals to young girls as they are crazy about the famous male artists and like to read about their funny stories. Also the fact that Top of the Pops magazine has put the main page numbers in the biggest font, is to attract the audience to those specific pages. This way the target audience won't get bored looking through every page to find what they want. Furthermore there are lots of big page numbers to keep the readers excited and to show them that there is a lot to read about that would interest them.

This is the contents page for Billboard magazine. As you can see it's very different to the Top of the Pops magazine, the main reason for this is the difference in target audience. This music magazine is targeted at older teenagers and adults, this is clear from the set up of the magazine. For example it has a clear structure, with neat and consistent fonts and quite neutral colours. Also the images used present people with a range of ages which shows the variety of the target audience and the model in the centre of the image looks quite fashionable showing that the magazine is up to date and readable by a mixture of people.

The contents page on every issue of Billboard magazine has the charts down the left hand side. The chart list is what is associated with Billboard and it's an essential, it shows all the up to date, popular songs, albums and artists. This contents page also includes all the relevant for each page in detail. This again, emphasises the target audience of adults as there is more writing than images, and there is a basic font with basic colours throughout. This isn't a bad thing, it is just what is suited for the variety of people who read this magazine. If Billboard magazine were to style their covers like Top of the Pops do, people would think it's a childish set up with not enough reading.

This is the contents page for Mojo Music Magazine. This is the template for all the contents pages and they all look very similar. The target audience for Mojo magazine is adults, this is clearly shown by the layout of the contents page, there is only one main photo and the rest is text. The text doesn't have a lot of variation, it sticks to a couple of fonts and a couple of sizes. Also the colours used are quite neutral. Again, Mojo magazine don't need to have big text and lots of different colours to draw in their audience of adults. Having a bright theme like Top of the Pops magazine isn't necessary and it would probably again, draw away the attention because it looks 'childish'.

The main subject in the magazine contents page is Florence Welch, from the band 'Florence and the Machine'. The subtitles and the writing all revolve around her. She has red hair which is just like the titles so the contents page carries a theme to it which creates a mild contrast with the neutral background colour.

Also, there is lots of detail under each heading, this is another clue as to who the target audience are. Younger people prefer to look at pictures and adults usually prefer to read blocks of text. If this style of contents page was in Top of the Pops magazine, the target audience would get bored of reading it because it's not exciting, there isn't anything on the page that would jump out at them, and there also isn't any bright colours and fun writing that would suit their moods.