About Us
POSTED: 19:06 EST, January 11, 2007

The VIBE Media Group is a leading music/lifestyle media company that publishes the award-winning VIBE magazine, the preeminent brand in urban and music culture, which was founded by Quincy Jones in 1993. Additional VIBE Media Group properties include VIBE VIXEN magazine, which was launched in 2005 and reaches over 4.5 million women; VIBE.com, a website that draws 1.6 MM unique visitors a month (Nielsen Netratings, Jan. 2007); Comcast’s VIBE Video-on-Demand channel; The VIBE Awards, and the wireless content service mVibe.

LEONARD E. BURNETT, JR.
Vice President, Group Publisher
VIBE Media Group
Len Burnett is an industry veteran and highly successful entrepreneur with over 20 years of publishing experience. As a pioneer in the urban media space, Burnett has successfully launched seven major magazines and is a driving force in reaching the growing multicultural audience. Burnett was appointed group publisher of VIBE, the nation’s leading urban music and culture magazine, and its spin-off, VIBE VIXEN, the fashion and beauty title for women, in June 2005 and vice president/group publisher of the VIBE Media Group in July 2006. Burnett is a VIBE alum and was with the magazine during its inception having held the post of Associate Publisher before leaving to pursue his own entrepreneurial endeavors in 1999. Prior to returning to VIBE, Burnett most recently served as Co-Founder and Publisher of Uptown magazine, a quarterly publication for urbanites focusing on the lifestyle and culture of affluent African Americans in New York, Chicago, DC and Atlanta. In 1999, Burnett co-founded the urban publishing company Vanguarde Media. Burnett also served as Group Publisher of the Vanguarde Media titles, which included Honey, Heart & Soul, Impact and Savoy. As Group Publisher, he is responsible for developing promotional initiatives that define VIBE as the preeminent brand in urban culture through multi-media ventures like the VIBE Awards show on UPN, VIBE MusicFest, VIBE Live Music Tours, as well as VIBE Game Club and Yard-fest College Tours. These brand extensions connect corporate advertisers to the young adult market through the medium of urban music, the most lucrative and fastest growing genre.

DANYEL SMITH
Editor-In-Chief
VIBE Magazine

Danyel Smith returned to VIBE in July 2006 as Editor-in-Chief of VIBE. A former editor-at-large for Time Inc., Smith initially joined VIBE in 1993 and was appointed music editor a year later. In 1996, she was awarded a National Arts Journalism Program fellowship and was appointed Editor-In-Chief of VIBE, VIBE Vixen, and the websites upon her return, serving until 1999. Smith has written for Elle, Time, Cosmopolitan, Essence, The Village Voice, The New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, Spin, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, Condé Nast Media Group, and the New York Times. Smith is the author of the San Francisco Chronicle-bestselling novel, More Like Wrestling (Crown) and she wrote the introduction for The New York Times-bestseller, Tupac Shakur. Her second novel, Bliss (Crown), was published in 2005. Smith comments regularly on pop culture for VH-1, WNYC, and CNN. She holds a master of fine arts in creative writing from the New School University.