Andre Torres: The Wax Poet

f you ask the eloquent Andre Torres how he came to be the man behind one of music’s most treasured editorial gems for going on 11 years, he will pause, lean back in his chair, and tell you it was because of utter blindness and naïveté. Now, those two qualities might otherwise implode and birth nothing but disappointment for anyone else with the same high hopes, but for Torres, that was all the spark he needed. While everyone else was carefully crafting their futures and straining to plan every detail down to crossed Ts and dotted Is, Torres was concocting an idea that, if it failed, left nothing else to fall back on.

“I didn’t have a plan B. I didn’t have credit. I relied on what I had left of unemployment checks and my partners for credit. I was even taking writers out for drinks, telling them I couldn’t pay them at that time, but that hopefully this idea would work out…”Before Waxpoetics became a multimedia brand, Torres started with the incipient idea to create a documentary that would shed light on the crate- and beat-digging culture. But as he began to gather resources, Torres realized there were no publications on the market feeding the insatiable hunger true music heads felt for both current hip hop as well as genres like blues, jazz, funk, soul, disco and even techno. Instead of second-guessing himself, following the tragic turn of events on September 11, Torres went for the gold, and released the first issue of Waxpoetics in 2001.

“We started on this very underground scene, made for those who were really committed to what we were doing. But over the course of the last 10 years, the sound has become more prevalent. And as the sound became more popular, we became one of the only outlets.” For all of the XXLs and The Sources, there were no magazines putting artists like Slick Rick on their covers or featuring up-to-date interviews with legends like Teddy Pendergrass. These concepts might seem far-fetched to those who only dabble outside of mainstream music, but there was and continues to be a voracious market asking for precisely what Waxpoetics provides. In a journalistic climate edging on editorial cataclysm, with magazines collapsing almost weekly, Waxpoetics has continuously thrived. “I have never felt the need to play the newsstand game. Our audience is down with what we do. It’s not about the cover, but about the whole package,” says Torres. Under Torres’s direction, Waxpoetics has expanded to include Waxpoetics digital, an eponymous record label, a Japanese edition, a publishing company, and a film and TV extension, which we will see in full effect by 2012. There’s no way around it: Waxpoetics has become a brand, a word Torres says he never would have used to describe his business when he first moved to New York after college graduation.

Growing up, Torres watched hip hop explode in Brooklyn; when Biggie was asking “where Brooklyn at?” Torres looked around and knew Florida wasn’t it for him. “When I was in college in Florida, I thought Brooklyn was the center of the universe.” Torres says. “When I moved here, it kind of finalized my childhood fantasies. Brooklyn is a part of who we are. I wouldn’t want to be in Manhattan, really, for anything. Brooklyn is kind of it for me,” he says with a commanding sense of finality. The Waxpoetics office, which recently took over the fifth floor of a Dumbo office space, is crowded with boxes upon boxes of Waxpoetics issues. Torres’s desk doubles as a musical treasure chest, hosting back-to-back stacks of CDs that would collectively incite drool from the music-heads and crate-diggers the magazine caters to an audience that has grown exponentially over the last 10 years. When asked about the current state of hip-hop, Torres had this to say, “You begin to realize these kids are just trying to do what we did. They’re trying to be a part of history. So what are you gonna do? Stand around and complain about it? It’s music. Come to terms with it. If you just shut it down, that just stops music.”

“People used to tell my generation that what we were listening to –– hip hop –– wasn’t music. Now people want to turn around and say ‘That’s not hip hop?’ That only disconnects us from our youth.” So can subscribers expect to see Waka on the cover of Waxpoetics? “That’s where the website comes in,” Torres says with 100% sincerity, speaking on opportunities he feels the web offers that print doesn’t. “If there were a launch pad with a 3-minute video interview? That’s a lot easier to digest than putting him on the cover. But I am willing to push boundaries. I don’t want people to be too comfortable with what they think we are.” He doesn’t want readers to get too comfortable, but he hasn’t settled either. Torres is still vehemently making moves to ensure that Waxpoetics remains an undeniable force that will continue to conquer its niche market while maintaining 100% authenticity in its expansion. Like any born leader, hustler, game-changer and visionary, Torres is never satisfied. “As proud as I am, there’s always the quest for the perfect issue. We’ve never quite done it perfectly, so it’s a constant search.” But Torres sees unlimited potential in the web, where new changes will be seen in the coming weeks.

As for the man behind it all, well, he’s not going anywhere soon. He’s already formulating a master plan for the next few decades, where he believes the key to success is evolution. “I want to be that dude that’s 67 and knows the newest band out and the newest artists. I think you have to think that way to stay relevant,” he says. So, while Brooklyn may be it for Andre Torres; that’s about the only notion of finality you’ll find surrounding the man who never needed a plan B.