Talent: Journalist
Company: Ozone Magazine
Contact: www.ozonemag.com
               www.myspace.com/ozonemagazine

 

 

                    First Annual Ozone Awards





Florida-based Julia Beverly fell in love with photography at age 19. A college dropout and professional hustler, angry that certain New York-based hip-hop magazines wouldn’t return her calls, she took the do-it-yourself route and founded OZONE Magazine in 2002. Four ears and 50 issues later, OZONE has earned its reputation as the premiere Southern hip-hop magazine. When she isn’t writing a scathing OZONE editorial or chasing rappers with a camera, Julia also contributes to VIBE Magazine.


How would you described the position that you’re in right now as the publisher and chief editor of a magazine that not to many people believed in at first?

I don’t really look at it like that. I think that as far as what your position is or your influences or accomplishments, I think that’s up to other people. It's funny to me when people approach me in certain ways or the fact that people want to interview me or take pictures with me. Its just funny to me. I don’t really think that. I think I’ve accomplished certain things in terms of that nobody would have really looked at me and thought that I could really create a successful rap magazine. Really I’ve kind of taking the SOURCE’s place in terms of relevance on what’s going on in the game right now but you know I don’t really like to sit around and pat myself on the back or I don’t think you can really take that attitude because then you get lazy.  I’m a little bit bored with the whole magazine thing actually. I feel like I kind of did accomplish what I set out to accomplish so now the trick is to maintain that and not get stagnate, not get  bored and to branch out into other things and just keep yourself motivated.

At conferences and stuff like that, when people come up to you and want to take pictures with you, you don’t think that you deserve it with all the hard work that you've put in. You don’t think that you deserve some glory?

That was never my intention. I want people to respect me and support what I’m doing. I don’t like taking pictures and being in the spotlight and all that. I mean it feels good to a certain extent I guess but that wasn’t what I set out to be somebody that people want to take pictures with. That was never really my goal. It just happened that way. I just think its funny; I mean don’t get me wrong I appreciate the fact that people think that I am somebody that they want to take a pictures with. That’s cool, it just surprises me that it turned out that way cause that wasn’t something that I intended to happen.

With more people now owning computers and spending more time online, do you think that the percentage of readers would decline in the next couple of years?

Naw I don’t think. Its just like the music industry. You have to find different ways to branch out and still put your product out there. I think we have a good internet presence. With our website, we get twenty million hits a month. I think that people are always going to want something that they can physically hold in their hand and there is always going to be places where you can't necessary go online. The average person is not going to want to sit at the computer all day long. Sometimes you just want to take it with you whether your driving somewhere or on a plane your always going to want something physically with you. You’ve seen we use to have cassette tapes and VHS tapes and now everything is DVD and CD’s so of course, media is constantly going to change but the essence of it is always going to stay the same and that is, if you bring something that is different then what everybody else is bringing, you will have a unique prospective and an unique voice that is always going to work no matter what format of media you put it in. So the trick is to stay current and stay up with the times.

Going back to the comment where you said that OZONE magazine kind of replace the SOURCE, what do you think separates OZONE magazine from publications such as the SOURCE, XXL...etc?

I think we’re definitely more street, more raw, more uncensored. We don’t really work on an 8-5 type schedule. I know me personally I try to stay on the road as much as possible. Its been hard with the award show and stuff like that to where I kind of have to be in the office and be on top of my paper work game but you know we're more 24/7 so that enables us to have the relationships that we have with these artists which can be a blessing and a curse. But I think that is one of the biggest things that these artists know me and know the staff for. We're in the club with them, we go out to IHOP with them at five in the morning where as they probably do not know the owner of VIBE or they may not know the editor of XXL, so I definitely think that we are more the voice of the artist cause I try not to put our opinions in so much when we do interviews.  Our format is pretty much Q & A while a lot of times we actually have artists who like Killa Mike was doing a column for a while. David Banner was doing a column for a while. We always have artist  things that like the last issue we had a lot of artist write their top 10 list.  Chamillionare, Paul Wall, Bun B they all sent them in. I always try to take myself out of the equation as much as possible and not really put my opinions into things and just let them speak what’s on their mind and put it out there.  In terms of what separates us of course, they have more distribution and there available on more news stands and that’s the direction that were heading but you know of course we want to keep that same essence to it and keep it raw, keep it street and not have it be corporate. Its hard to get into certain places like the Blockbusters; Barnes & Noble who won't take us because they say they don’t like our language. Blockbuster doesn’t want anything sexual. We don’t cross the lines, we just have explicit language, we talk about things that kids probably shouldn’t read about so its sort of may limit us into getting into places like Wal-Mart’s and Barnes& Nobles. Places like Wal-Mart and Barnes& Noble have come to me and said they'll only accept us if we clean up our language and I don’t want to do that cause I don’t want to lose our core readership so I just keep it the way it is and when we interviews artist and every other word is mother fucker and this and that. I pretty much just leave it. I mean I might clean it up a little bit but I think if you clean it up to much then it sounds fake and people don’t want to read that.

Speaking of the awards, with all the major cities around  the south such as Miami, Atlanta, Houston, what made you decide to have the 1st annual OZONE awards in Orlando?

Well, the reason of course was that we’re based in Orlando and I felt that I kind of owed it to the city to do something big for the city and bring in all these people. I think that it was real major the fact that we did get all these artist and not just artist we had some real key industry people.  TJ and I just sat down and made a list of the movers and shakers of the industry who either he had a relationship with or I had a relationship with and we made it a point to bring all those people down and about ninety-five percent of them showed up.  So I think that was real major not just to have artist because I always see people trying to hand demos to T.I. Like this girl knocked me over in Atlanta trying to give her demo to T.I. I mean that’s cool but that’s not who needs to get your demo. The A&R’s need to get your demo and the DJ’s need to play your music and stuff like that. So I think the fact that we brought all these industry people to Orlando was real major and I hope people took advantage of that but I think it turned out real good and people even artist made comments to me that they thought it was a good place to have it because everybody does stuff in Miami, everybody does stuff in Atlanta and there’s reasons hat those are great cities. But if your trying to do something that represents the whole south you kind of need  a neutral ground. If your going to do an event in Miami its going to turn out being some straight Miami stuff, if you do it in Houston its going to be a straight Texas vibe. I think Orlando is pretty neutral ground for all those acts coming in and that’s why we did those performances like we had the Florida set, Texas set, the Atlanta set, we had Wayne perform. It was just a neutral, meeting ground for everyone to come together.

Can you tell us what we can expect from next year’s award show or are you on vacation right now for the time being?

I don’t even want to think about an award show right now. Naw, I mean it is going to be much bigger, much better and that’s all I know right now. I mean it was hectic and we pulled it off, and it was crazy, the performances were crazy, everybody came out.  I appreciate everybody who came out to support. Everybody from Bun B to Ludacris; David Banner to PIMP C, just the whole mind, Lil Wayne everybody who came out.  I think it was a great 1st year and I learned a lot. There was a lot of obstacles in the way. Forty-eight hours before the event I didn’t even think it was going to happen. We didn’t think we were going to have a venue so there were a lot of things behind the scenes that people don’t even know about that we had to go through to pull it off but we pulled it off. It was great experience for everybody. I haven’t heard any negative comments. Everybody really enjoyed themselves and I feel like it was a great 1st year.

Going back to the magazine itself, if you can go back and turn back the hands of time, is there a specific issue that you wish you could take back and why?

I always feel like I don’t have enough time to do what I want to do with an issue but no there isn’t one in particular for the most part you can't look at it that way. You just have to keep it moving and apply what you learned to the future issues but its hard to put together an issue every three or four weeks and have it be complete, at the same time. I run a business and not only do I have to handle all the business aspects of things but creatively you just feel like you never have enough time. That’s why you always see artist albums pushed back cause they feel like it could be bigger and better.  I feel like that with every issue, that if I would have had more time I could have added this or added that but you just gotta set a deadline, wrap it up and keep it moving.

At the end of the day what do you want people to remember Julia Beverly and the OZONE magazine for?

 I don’t know. They can form there own opinions. I guess I just want people to respect the fact that I just did me. I didn’t change for anybody else.  I think people get to caught up about being part of what somebody else’s ideal is and I just do me and do it one hundred percent. I just think that I work hard and I don’t have time for a lot of bullshit and I think people get caught up in a lot of bullshit. People have things that slow them down with whatever they're trying to do or they get lazy and not exerting themselves 100%. Ever since I started the magazine I always felt that I was just so busy that I could never get any busier and never get anymore productive or any crazier. Iit always gets more hectic so I think sometimes you have to test yourself and see how far you can push yourself and how much you can actually accomplish in a certain period of time.  If you don’t set deadlines, you don’t have goals or things that you’re working towards then you will just not get anywhere.

With all the promoters, DJ’s, Label Exec’s that you know, have you ever thought about discovering an artist to shop to a labels to earn a small percentage of there contract?

I mean, I've helped people get deals but its more indirect then that. That’s not really how I make my money. I look at it as I helped artist in certain ways and that comes back because when they get signed you know they have there labels run ads and they might do a free show for me. The award show was a perfect example of that because I don’t think there is too many people who could have got all those artist to come out to a show and perform but you know a lot of them did it cause they felt that I have helped them in certain ways.  I probably could but that’s not my main focus. With discovering artist, there is to much drama that comes along with that. I would rather stick with what I know. When you rely on other people to make money for you it takes the control out of your hands. I like to get money through my own company, my own product cause I know if something fucked up happens then its my fault, I cant blame that on nobody else.

Who are some of the artist that you think will blow in the next year?

Plies, Trae, Yola, DJ Unk, Jibbs.That’s all I can think of right now.  Yeah, that’s probably the only ones I would say for sure right now. Roc Bottle,I’ve been hearing some good things about them.