Ego Trip's Book of Rap Lists by Sacha Jenkins

Jeff Mao: I grew up in a suburb called Newton. (He also continues to write the independent hip-hop column 'Chairman's Choice' in XXL Magazine).ĪPA recently spoke with Mao about his route into hip-hop, records, plus the secret lives of sousaphone players.ĪPA: You grew up outside of Boston right? Records have been a passion since his teen years and his reputation as a music chronicler is only matched as a record expert. Fine Wine, David Griffiths, and Jared Boxx. He currently hosts the monthly Bump Shop party along with DJs Mr. On his own, Mao has led an immensely successful other life as one of New York's leading soul/funk DJs and collectors. Even 10 years after its end, ego trip is still widely considered by many to be the best hip-hop publication ever.Īfter the magazine's folding in 1998, the ego trip staff began to embark on assembling a budding multimedia empire which has included two ego trip books: 1999's brilliant, dense Book of Rap Lists and 2002's tongue-in-cheek Big Book of Racism! an album compilation, 2000's The Big Playback and more recently, two reality TV series on VH1 - last year's The (White) Rapper Show and this year's Miss Rap Supreme which debuted on April 14th. It made ego trip the favorite publication amongst a small but intensely loyal group of fans, especially other rap writers for whom a byline in the mag was a mark of privilege. As 'the arrogant voice of musical truth,' ego trip took a strident, sardonic tone that cut sharply against the conventional style of major magazines such as The Source or Vibe. It was around that same time that I discovered ego trip, the short-lived but highly influential magazine that Mao helped edit alongside Sacha Jenkins, Elliot Wilson, Brent Rollins, and Gabriel Alvarez. Almost all the Asian American rap writers I knew were on the West Coast and Mao was the first prominent East Coaster I'd encountered (though, as I would quickly learn, hardly the only).

I had likely seen Mao's byline earlier than that but this was the first time I really took notice. In 1996, the Los Angeles-based magazine Rap Pages commissioned a special 'DJ Issue' co-edited by both Jeffs.

The other is the focus of this profile: New York's Jeff Mao, aka Chairman Mao - erstwhile filmmaker turned DJ, writer, and TV producer. It's a quirky coincidence that two of the most renown scribes and chroniclers of hip-hop have been 40-something Chinese American guys named 'Jeff.' APA has already interviewed one. Then came ego trip and the rest is history. Before he became the Chairman, Jeff Mao played the sousaphone, listened to the Jackson 5, and dabbled in film.

Ego Trip's Book of Rap Lists by Sacha Jenkins