Hardcore Is More Than Music began in 2002 as a music fanzine covering street culture and cutting edge popular culture. The past two years have seen the organisation grow into a social enterprise that works with young people, puts on events all over the world and has a unique niche bringing young people from the innercity together with the top culture-makers in the world.

We've had quite an unconventional route into publishing. For myself and Nendie, it was never a conscious decision to start a business or a magazine. I met Nendie on the first day of Art College, and we soon became best mates. In the second year we were both finding life at college wasn't fulfilling us creatively. We were encouraged to work on our own in the studio, which was often quite isolated, and boring. What bought us to work together was a shared desire to communicate with our contemporaries, not just people at Art College. We wanted our mates to like our stuff, for it to spark ideas and arguments with them. We both wanted to put our ideas out into the world, and most importantly get some feedback on them!

The first projects we worked on were a travelling badge machine and a mobile moshpit which we toured around schools and youth clubs in London. In Spring 2002, we decided to put together a fanzine to publicise the work we were doing and so Hardcore Is More Than Music was born. My dad's a printer so he printed us up 1000 copies of a 24 page black and white booklet with a bright green cover, mounted with a free badge, which we gave out at the All Tomorrow's Parties music festival. It was satisfying to see people reading our ideas, while they waited for bands to go on. We put our email address in the fanzine and for the first time got loads of feedback; people were asking us when the next one was coming out.

At the time we both felt disillusioned by youth mags, with their emphasis on pure style over substance. We felt it should be ossible to spectate, critique and also ENJOY the youth culture around us. Our idea was to showcase the work of upcoming talent alongside established writers; we've had contributions from William Shaw (The Observer, Westsiders), Russell Simmons, (Def Jam), Matthew Barney, Jeremy Deller, Scott King and Joan Morgan (When Chickenheads Come Home To Roost). Often it was just about having the gall to get in touch with these people, blagging it a bit, that enabled us to get contributions. This came through the confidence of working together.

If I have one vital tip for starting up a mag, it would be this: don't try and do it all on your own! Working with mates will help you get more done for sure.

You could say that the magazine is the spine that holds our activities together and since its incarnation we've branched out in terms of what we do as an organisation ALOT. We've 'diversified', as the business peeps would say. We run youth workshops, focus groups, and have been commissioned to do projects for The ICA, The British Council, and Channel 4. In June 2004 we did a Saturday supplement for he Guardian newspaper, where we had a print run of 650,000! Last year we did an event at Tate Britain making a magazine in a day with 2,500 young people from all over London, working with MCs and producers including Bruza, JME, Skepta, Asher D and Wonder.

Magazines aren't money spinners! In fact they are notoriously one of the hardest enterprises to embark on financially. After we left college we found out about the Prince's Trust and the support they could provide for young enterprises. At our first business meetings, advisers used to say "a magazine, right, are you sure? You know those are loss leaders?". We didn't know what a loss leader was!

In February 2004 Hardcore Is More Than Music was awarded the Princes Trust's first Social Enterprise Grant of £10,000. This was the first time we had to handle what to us was serious cash. Don't think that just because you have ideas that you shouldn't learn how to use Microsoft Excel. Get on it - it's all about the spreadsheets!

WHY IT'S SO IMPORTANT TO PUT YOURSELF OUT THERE

Networking is not all schmoozing over canapes. It's about meeting people with similar visions; making things happen together. It's one of the most important ways of meeting people who can help you.

One of the key strengths of our organisation is our ability to bring different worlds together, bringing together people that would never otherwise meet. How often do you get JME and Skepta in the Tate gallery talking to young people? None of this would be achievable if we weren't making connections and building new relationships all the time. I promise, after a bit of networking practice you'll begin to enjoy it!

FUTURE BUILDING

So what now for Hardcore Is More Than Music?

Last November, Nendie entered a Channel 4 playwriting competition The Play's The Thing. She reached the final shortlist of ten. At the moment we're working with director Mary Crisp to turn the play Rameses Has Disappeared into a screenplay for TV to be workshopped by young people and screened in 2007.

Although people know us for the magazine, we're not afraid of working in different media, although sometimes it feels like a steep learning curve with each new venture. The mag was never a lifestyle choice for us. Essentially, we're driven by vision and ideology. We're launching a clothing range to accompany the film and working with business in West London to launch an on-line networking site for aspiring young creatives. Our next issue, Take Me Dancing Naked In The Rain with features on Dexplicit, Neneh Cherry, Bernard Wilhelm, will be out in early Autumn. Click here for more