![]() ![]() The power held by The Source represented one of those rare occasions in rap when the pen is just as mighty as the tongue. For rap nerds, there was a high that came from the pages: the smooth artifice of the ads, the bluntness of the op-eds, the iconic cover stories and the reviews section that made "5 mics in The Source" one of the most coveted cosigns. It shipped regional sounds across the country to a national readership and the viewers of its very own, sometimes-televised awards show. ![]() Between the late 1990s and early 2000s, it helped launch the careers of The Notorious B.I.G, Jay-Z, Nas, Lil' Kim, Foxy Brown and more. By the turn of the century, the name had weight of its own to throw around. Starting out in 1988 as a newsletter out of a college dorm room, hip-hop's longest-running periodical built its following by writing about rap with respect, and an air of prestige. While the current media landscape makes it hard to imagine a single publication - printed or otherwise - holding sway over an entire culture, for more than a decade, no rapper, label, show or network, was bigger than The Source. ![]()
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