New York Area Hip-Hop mag to launch

Birthplace Magazine, an informative, interactive website focusing on New York City area hip-hop music, artists and events, will launch on November 15, 2008, as www.birthplacemag.com.

Subtitled "New York Hip-Hop: Past, Present and Future", the e-zine/blog is an entertainment and lifestyle publication focusing on hip-hop music and culture, concentrating solely on the New York metropolitan area.

Birthplace is unique in this regard. While there are several successful magazines and websites covering this entertainment genre, there are none that focus on the significant pool of talent, events, personalities and integral contributors to hip-hop music and culture, that are specifically from, or based in, the New York area. Birthplace will provide nationally known, tri-state-based artists a hometown media outlet, while providing regionally known entities a platform they would not receive elsewhere. In addition, advertisers will now have a direct, affordable path to reach the vast spending power of New York's urban-music minded, web-savvy consumers.

Birthplace is the brainchild of Manny Faces, a producer/remixer best known for his widely distributed remakes of commercially released songs from artists such as Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige, T-Pain and Akon."Working in publishing for many years, including senior management positions for a major weekly newspaper and in operations management for publishing and marketing firms, has complimented my personal interests and involvement with hip-hop," Manny explains. "Living in New York, the birthplace of hip-hop, being connected with the music and culture, and witnessing a burgeoning movement to re-establish New York as the mecca of the art form, inspired me to craft this project."

Birthplace Magazine will showcase established and upcoming artists from all five NYC boroughs and surrounding areas, as well as contain featured journalistic pieces and interviews with organizations and other entities involved in New York hip-hop music. "We already have several ancillary expansion plans," states Manny, "including showcases, a radio program and involvement in New York area events. We expect that Birthplace will quickly become the only reputable source covering all aspects of New York area hip-hop."