Fact Magazine

I was approached by influential British music and counter culture magazine Fact to join their team as a freelance contributor in 2014. They were fans of my work as manager of small-but-revered Manhattan-based independent record store Other Music, where I had been writing and editing sales copy for a weekly DTC email catalog that reached an audience of over 35,000 global subscribers. Fact had a reputation for contemporary tastemaking among underground music fans, and were looking for someone possessing a deep knowledge of vintage music who could craft educational pieces that provided context and history to listeners steeped in urban-focused digital culture. Much like my years of curatorial sales work at OM, this tenure at Fact Mag helped expose new listeners across demographics to what I consider “the sounds behind the samples”: nuanced explorations of artists, albums, and genres of yesteryear that continue to find relevance and influence among contemporary trends.

My first freelance piece, a review of soul/R&B singer D’Angelo’s long-anticipated album Black Messiah proved to be my last: it received such positive feedback from readers that I successfully managed to soften the bilious barbs of Fact’s most trollish comment-section dwellers, and was swiftly hired as a full-time staff contributor and assistant editor. My focus shifted away from criticism and toward educational features, a tasting of which you’ll find below. I was also asked to pen the magazine’s monthly Reissues & Retrospectives column, highlighting my favorite superlative catalogue re-releases across genres in a concerted attempt to broaden and deepen the aural palates of Fact’s readers.

Click any of the images in the gallery below to read each respective piece in full; you’ll find that some pieces also include bonus audio content in the form of radio/DJ mixes curated and produced by yours truly.