Comments have been disabled so this doesn’t seem like some kind of back-patting party or something. Finally held the new XXL in my hands and read the very kind comments on my blog (“Better known as No Trivia, Soderberg’s blog gives rap the kind of intellectual, analytical respect is deserves.”) and the other ninety-nine picks. It’s a different thrill than seeing my byline in-print and we’re all supposed to be too cool about this stuff, but damn, I’m honored.
XXL, besides being a magazine I actually read from time-to-time–there was a time when my sanity was kept by the routine of picking up XXL, Wax Poetics, and Film Comment after work on the days they came out–is one that’s sorta active in the blogging world, so the list means a bit more? And not just because I’m in it. But because a big, giant, alphabetical list of dope blogs and websites is the proper way to advise someone on how to figure out the rap-blog world. The magazine’s also always printed kindly letters from inmates and for a while, I was shipping out copies of the magazines to prisons, helping the children, wives, and girlfriends of the incarcerated help their in-fucking-jail loved ones…so in some weird way, my stupid name being in the magazine in any form means a lot on that level too. Thanks to XXL and Ben Detrick.
