It just so happened that in the spring of 1990, months before he was to graduate, he saw a job ad in the back of The Source. To that point, his only writing clip was a venomous rant that he’d sent to the editor of a campus paper for a negative review given to Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet. It was published on page one of the next edition and immediately became the talk of the campus, even leading to the editor receiving a few anonymous death threats. “It was my first inkling that my writing could bring out an emotional response from people, and I kind of dug it.”

A few days after sending all his info in, he got a call from Jon Shecter, the editor-in-chief and co-founder/owner of the magazine. “I met with Jon and immediately connected with him. He seemed impressed by my knowledge of Hip Hop and invited me to fall by later in the week to meet some of the other staffers. I did so and met cats like Dave Mays, Matty C and Reef for the first time. They were all busy working on the latest issue and deciding what music was going to be included in a summer preview section. We chopped it up and everything seemed to be cool. I was just trying to soak up as much as possible. It was a really cool atmosphere and I was definitely hoping to be a part of it. About a week later I was invited back. It was during that trip that I first met Ed Young. He was the third partner and the first Black person that I had met at The Source…but since I was trying to get a gig on the editorial side I had to focus on making a good impression on Jon and Reef.”

Unfortunately for Reginald, he didn’t get the editorial position. But that didn’t mean he didn’t stick around, “I did all of the work that no one else wanted to do. I shucked and jived and skinned and grinned. I ran errands. I made deliveries. I inputted 10,000 subscriptions into the Macintosh. I helped the art director, Erik Council, with lay out and post up. I tried to anticipate problems and be there to help solve them. I still continued to snag as many writing assignments as I could and slowly built my self up in the eyes of the editors. I was making progress, but it was slow and the only real opportunities seemed to be on the business side so when the Director of Retail Sales decided to leave the magazine, I was offered his position and happily accepted it.” He continues, “In the early 90s there was little confidence in the Hip Hop audience. We didn’t count. Distributors believed that our audience didn’t read and that a Hip Hop magazine would never be successful. Around this time Dave Mays decided to publish a supplement to The Source, which was creatively called The Source Supplement. Strictly for the industry, it was basically a collection of sales charts. I would call all of my retail accounts and get the top five rap sales from them. I would also contact regional video shows and ask what the most requested videos were. We did about two or three issues of the supplement and were astonished to learn that the most popular records in the country were not by the likes of Main Source and Brand Nubian but rather DJ Quik and MC Breed and the DFC. I was like 'whoa, there is a whole different country out here that is not being reflected in the pages of The Source.' So I started to step up my writing game, hoping that I could one day break into the editorial side and nudge the coverage so it spoke to a larger selection of the country.” Continued on page 3 »