David Mays

David Mays is the founder of The Source Magazine[1] and co-founder of Hip Hop Weekly. He is the co-founder of The Hip-Hop Museum Pop-Up Experience, started in 2019.[2]

Mays created The Source in 1988 as a single sheet newsletter while a Harvard undergraduate. It soon became a national magazine.

While at Harvard, Mays co-hosted a radio show on WHRB, "Street Beat," using the name "Go-Go Dave." Mays' co-host was Jon Shecter, "J the Sultan of Rap." Mays made Shecter a partner inThe Source, which provided news and information on Hip-Hop to listeners of the radio show.  After graduation, Mays and Shecter brought The Source to New York, with classmate Ed Young and Harvard Law School graduate James Bernard as additional partners.

Mays, as publisher, guided the rapid growth of the magazine, fostering its role as the champion of and critical voice for hip-hop culture.[3] The Source’s “5 Mics” album rating system became the standard by which all hip-hop albums were measured. The magazine's "Unsigned Hype" column was responsible for discovering and helping launch the careers of The Notorious B.I.G, Common, Mobb Deep, DMX and many more artists who would go on to become stars. In 1991, Mays created The Source Awards,[4] which started as a feature on the TV show Yo! MTV Raps, and later became an independent annual production with some of the highest rated TV specials for a hip-hop audience ever with the UPN Network[5] then on BET.[6]

Mays partnered with the mayor and city of Miami to host a weekend of entertainment and community activities, in conjunction with The Source Awards in August 2004, that attracted over 50,000 attendees. The Source Awards Weekend generated over $50 million in tourist revenue for the city.

Mays built a stable of companies around The Source brand, including a compilation album series (The Source Presents: Hip Hop Hits), two weekly TV shows (The Source All Access[7], The Source Sound Lab),[8] a mobile content download business and a clothing line, as well as foreign language editions of the magazine: The Source France, The Source Japan and The Source Latino. Mays was the first entrepreneur to introduce Hip-Hop to Madison Avenue, opening the doors for Nike, Mountain Dew and other corporate brands to begin marketing to the Hip-Hop consumer.[9]

In 1999, Mays created The Source Youth Foundation, which raised over $1 million to fund programs and organizations across the country using Hip-Hop to effectively reach at-risk, inner-city youth.[10] Mays co-created the first national Hip-Hop political summit ("A Special Summit on Social Responsibility in the Hip-Hop Industry") in 2000 with the Reverend Al Sharpton and the National Action Network[11]

In its 50th Anniversary issue, GQ Magazine called The Source one of the “27 Things that Changed Men’s Lives” over the last 50 years. Mays’ efforts in the media, entertainment and corporate business worlds were instrumental in bringing Hip-Hop into the mainstream, while creating jobs, and supporting the launch and growth of many businesses and careers in the fields of magazine publishing, fashion, music, TV, film, advertising and journalism.

Details named Mays one of the 50 most influential men under 37 in its October 2002 issue.

In January 2007, Mays and Raymond Scott founded Hip Hop Weekly, the first urban celebrity and entertainment magazine. Hip Hop Weekly became the top-selling urban-format magazine on newsstands in America, and received publishing honors several years in a row, including MIN’s Top Emerging Magazines in 2007.

Mays, a native of Washington, DC, is a graduate of Wilson High School. He received his degree in Government from Harvard University in 1990.