With so many great new mags popping up all the time, it’s easy for us to focus almost exclusively on new titles on this blog… and to a fault, we probably do! With that in mind, this post marks the beginning of a new on-going feature where we dig up some of our old favourites…

Founded in 2001 (and now forty one issues deep) Wax Poetics is basically your crate diggers companion par excellence—there’s everything you need to know about slabs of wax both classic and obscure from Polish jazz to hip-hop to afrobeat and disco, latin, soul, R&B and back again.

Where it really comes into its own is as a historical compendium; un-earthing records long forgotten by all but the most ardent of collectors and conducting deep, long form interviews with the artists behind them and shedding some light on their creation.

Independently published out of Brooklyn by editor Andre Torres, the latest issue is a hip-hop special with features on Easy Mo Bee (he produced pretty much all of Biggie’s first record, dig?) and KRS-One, Stones Throw records head honcho Peanut Butter Wolf weighing in on Ariel Pink on his favourite music videos, Ice-T talking about his electro roots (with incredible, classic photos by Glen E. Friedman) and Ice Cube remisicing on the creation of Amerikkka’s Most Wanted. Essential!