The story of @wax_poetics started in 2001 when founders Andre Torres and Brian DiGenti wanted to make a documentary about record collectors, while they were living in New York. Soon they realized there wasn’t a single printed publication dedicated to the culture beat digging, crate digging and vinyl culture in general. Being hip-hop heads (it is said that Brian DiGenti was so obsessed with hip-hop samples he always carried around an entire archive to record stores) and vinyl collectors themselves they took matters into their own hands; they skipped the documentary and released a quarterly magazine focussing on hip hop, reggae, latin, jazz, soul and more. All through the specific eyes of the crate digger.
The beloved magazine added apparel, a record label and book publishing to their activities throughout the years they were active (2001 – 2017). In 2008 Wax Poetics Japan was established as well. Wax poetics was and is loved by music lovers all over the world because they differ so much from mainstream magazines. It shows for example in the way they rarely commision work. Usually magazines are given proposals and the magazine then assign that article to a writer. Wax Poetics didn’t really do that. Usually they were approached by a writer -sometimes simply by one of their peers and not necessarily a professional writer – and they were pitched a story. The writer usually, on their own merit, were researching an artist or subject and offered to share their findings to the community. This guarantees the articles are indept, pure and very informative rather than to have to yield to commercial intentions and goals. Ironically this made Wax Poetics so beloved and popular amongst the readers. The founders always had the vision to represent hip-hop with respect, seriousness and putting it into historical context. Ultimately Wax Poetics is more than just another magazine and their cult status that keeps growing proofs that things done with meaning and pure intention has a way of growing into that what affect the future generations of artists, vinyl collectors and music lovers for the better.
After a hiatus in 2017 where the magazine stopped it’s activities (the subscribers couldn’t compensate for the costs anymore) Wax poetics has new owners in 2021. Alex Bruh and David Holt, British marketers and brand consultants. They have revived the magazine with a new office and some of the old skool writers in Amsterdam, together with a new website with lots of extras for subscribers. Via crowdfunding they are reaching out to the community to bring back this cult magazine to life with their first issue from “Volume 2” being Marvin Gaye singing his heavenly lungs out on the cover.
Photo: @sunplify’s personal collection.