VIBE Front Cover Analysis No.1

This Vibe music magazine front cover is aimed at a male dominant target audience. The main image of ‘Lil Wayne’ creates an effect of a careless, powerful, moody and serious attitude to the reader. This image is more likely to attract the male target audience as it shows how males act and consider themselves to be the one with all the power and high authority over women.  

The outfit that he is wearing reflect on the image that ‘Lil Wayne’ is trying to portray. The ‘bling’ that he is wearing represents a very repulsive, aggressive and pimp like image.  The word ‘RAPE’ on his belt creates strong effect, because it is in upper case. Here it shows power of the male gender over women. Furthermore it again reflects on his careless attitude, of what people think of him. The mass amount of tattoos imply on the genre of R&B. The fact that the tattoos are on show with the jacket zip undone creates impact that ‘Lil Wayne’ is not ashamed of what people’s opinions are of him and of his body, and that he wants everyone to know that he is above all the rest, by looking at his facial expression. His mouth is open and his eyes are looking down on the reader giving the higher status look and making the reader feel uncomfortable.  The gold chain around his neck gives a more gangster image.

 The colour of his jacket is pink, which creates an impact of ‘Lil Wayne’ being masculine with his pose to the audience of a very serious gesture, but can also be described as feminine. This is because of the writing of ‘Lil Wayne’ being in upper case, pink font and bold, and the rest of the writing in black, upper case and normal writing. The words ‘loving Trina’ can be interpreted as his idol as she is an African America rapper.  We can say here that he is showing some respect towards women, if he saying he’s ‘hating the hot boys and loving Trina’. The fact that ‘Trina’ is underlined shows the passion that he has, which would grab the reader’s attention straight away. The constant use of pink through the fonts and his clothing can suggest that maybe he is not completely someone who wants high authority, but someone who has dignity for the opposite sex, and isn’t afraid to show it. Adding on to this, we can say that the pink font, can relate back to that ‘Hollywood’ look. The header ‘VIBE’ is in uppercase, big, bold and black, showing a very aggressive colour, for a male target audience. Again this shows that it is a male dominant music magazine. The position of ‘Lil Wayne’s’ head covering the letter ‘B’ his male dominance, high authority and tyranny.  The low jeans, showing most of his boxers, gives a sense of black culture, as it is their image. Plus, it shows ‘Lil Wayne’ is shameless, in what he is showing, as shown from what the reader gets of his personality which is a very serious and careless attitude. The use of mode of address is shown as male dominant. ‘JAHEIM, A THUG’S PASSION’, the word ‘thug’ is very masculine, aggressive and repulsive. This gives a powerful effect.