Vibe Magazine – February 1998 (Rap Reigns Cover, Our Biggest, Baddest Picks of the Year)

A Piece of Vibe Magazine History

Vibe crowns the year in hip-hop on its February 1998 cover, where four of rap’s reigning MCs pose in jeweled crowns under the declaration Rap Reigns. Billed as the magazine’s biggest and baddest picks of the year, the issue takes stock of a genre at its commercial and cultural peak, rounded out by cover-line features on a young Usher growing up, Pam Grier getting open, and a Vibe Q&A with Steven Spielberg. A definitive late-nineties snapshot from Vibe, the magazine that chronicled the soul and swagger of hip-hop and R&B culture.