Playlouder - Music is the Network

Veteran hip-hop journalist and XXL editor Elliot "Yellow Nigga" Wilson has been fired by Harris Publications, I am sad to report.  Wilson was the very vocal public face of the magazine for ten years, raising it from a low-level rap mag to the biggest hip-hop magazine in America, making a reputation for himslef by applying rap tactics to magazine publishing - going at rivals The Source in editorials and airing beefs with rappers like Ludacris and fellow journalists.

A few months ago he out himself in a Reebok "I Will Not Lose" ad on the back of the XXL tenth anniversary issue.  Oops.

Wilson founded the influential Ego Trip magazine in the early nineties, going on to becoming an editor at The Source before quitting along with much of the staff in protest at the violent and goonish actions of the mag's co-owners Dave Mays and failed rapper Ray Benzino and taking up the reigns at XXL. 

No reason has yet emerged for the firing. Deputy editor Vanessa Satten will take over until a replacement is announced. 

Wilson shouldn't be hard pressed to find work - he's currently writing an authorised biography of Jay Z, and his Ego Trip brand continues to produce quality rap/race programming for VH1.