EDITOR'S LETTER
Say what you want about VIBE's first ever Tabloid Issue: Bold! Amazing! Sensual! Exciting! But I tell you one thing, this was the year to do it - VIBE's wicked twin sibling.
To say 2007 has been a turbulent, dramatic, and melodramatic year is still underselling the 50 Cent/Kanye West CD sales "feud," the meteoric rise of Rihanna, the dance crazes, the last-minute, the Gangster resurrection of Jay-Z, the unlikely resurrection of Vans shoes, the enduring bond between Jay-Z and Beyoncé, Rihanna and Beyoncé neck and neck, the crash and burn of 50 Cent (a zillionaire's burn, which includes filming a $60 million movie with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro). Then there's The Game getting arrested, T.I. getting arrested, Lil Wayne getting arrested, DJ Drama getting arrested, Paris Hilton going to jail, Foxy Brown going to jail, Britney Spears shaving her head, Spears' sons being handed over to Big Poppa Kevin Federline, the divorce decree for Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, the eminent reemergence of Houston, Diddy and Kim "really" breaking up for good, Scary Spice having Eddie Murphy's daughter. Amy Winehouse carving tattoos into herself with broken glass, Winehouse's beehive, Lil Wayne's continued ascension to the top of the hip hop crop, J.Lo and Marc Anthony pregnant with twins, Akon losing sponsorship deals for dirty-dancing with a 14-year-old - I mean, as one of my favorite writers has as his e-mail tag (quoting Buju Banton), I could go on and on and the full has never been told - and probably never will be. But! Here we are, screaming headlines and all - delivering 2007 in all its riotous glory, and making predictions about what promises to be a great '08.
My main prediction, though, is that VIBE will have a magnificent 15th Anniversary year. Yes, it's our birthday, a big one, and we'll be celebrating each and every issue of 2008.
Join at this wild beginning of a banner year - why not? Shoot, this month? We've even got a crossword puzzle.
As ever,
Danyel Smith
Editor-in-Chief
P.S. A grand welcome to our new Associate Publisher Edgar Hernandez (he stays fresh), as well as to new Exec. Assistant to the E-I-C, indefatigable Shirea Carroll (a deacon's daughter, by the way). We say goodbye this issue to Group Publisher Len Burnett - a man who, off and on for the past 15 years, sweat blood for this brand. We bid him adieu with love and respect.
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