XXL sells an average of 312,203 copies a month. Those numbers put it ahead of publications like Rolling Stone, Blender, Spin and VIBE.

Elliot Wilson (aka Yellow Nig) worked at The Source magazine from 1996 to 1998, but left along with a bunch of other staff writers who saw The Source as compromised when Benzino (an associate of Source publisher Dave Mays) began to attempt to influence the editorial and ratings system.

Wilson's next project was Ego Trip magazine, but he folded it after only 13 issues and started on books. Wilson says, "We did this book called Ego Trip's Book of Rappers, which did real well for us. Scarface bigged it up on MTV and it sold like 30,000 copies."

Around that time, XXL approached him to be Editor-In-Chief. Since taking the job 5 years ago, Wilson has helped tripled the magazine's circulation to around 300,000 copies a month. XXL has also benefited from a staggering 65% increase in subscriptions while its main competitor, The Source magazine declined 31% in the same time period.

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