The magazine was founded by journalists Paul Bradshaw, Neil Spencer, and Kathryn Willgress to cover music of black origin including hip hop, dance, reggae, Latin and African styles that were largely ignored by mainstream media.

Occasionally a covermount CD or tape was also included with the magazine, sometimes either only for a limited number of copies or for its initial print run for that issue, but other times only for sale on the Japanese edition.

[3] Alongside prominent music business faces such as Gilles Peterson and James Lavelle were many talented designers, fashion professionals, writers, dancers, and fellow photographers.

While most of the magazine contained charts from eminent DJ's on the scene (including a regular chart from Bradshaw's DJ friends James Lavelle, Dave Hucker, Ross Allen, and Gilles Peterson)[4] or articles on underground music scenes around the world, it also had an eye on contemporary artwork, and underground fashionable trends in and outside various music communities usually not generally well-known about outside of the world's big urban centres (London, Paris, Tokyo, New York, San Francisco, et al.).

Photo cover artists featured on the first volume issues: Photo cover artists featured on the second volume issues: Photo cover artists featured on the later volume issues: For various reasons, not least declining magazine sales with the spread of internet usage and thus a loss in its advertising revenues, plus the changing affects in the general music culture from vinyl and CD collecting to more digital downloading and streaming, Bradshaw decided to shut the original magazine down in 2007, with the last issue being number 46 from volume 2, the Summer edition released around August that year.