The Good Old Days... Photo by Ron Thompson
This article may highlight my age and my regional preference; but it's definitely important to the topic at hand.
Seriously though; what happened to hip hop on the radio? What happened to the days where you actually listened to the radio for new and exciting music. What happened to "urban" radio, PERIOD?
I understand that our infatuation with the radio naturally faded in our teenage years when other things became more important; hanging out with friends, girls/boys, jobs/money, life. But evenso...have you listened to the radio latey? I won't even place an adjective on it. I'll just give the facts: I listened to the radio on Saturday while running errands, etc. In a matter of 5 hours, I heard "Blame it" by Jamie Foxx 3 times. I heard "Kiss me through the Phone," Soulja Boy 2 times, and "Live Ya Life" by T.I. 2 times.
Does anyone else think this is ridiculous?
Additionally, there were approximately 1.5 hours of commercials and radio banter in a matter of 5+ hours.
How long has it been like this? When my generation listened to the radio in the 80s and 90s, was it this way? Were we just as blind in our pre-teen/teen years as radio listeners of today. I remember my aunts and uncles (older adults at the time) listening to the radio with as much enthusiasm as I did as a young boy.
Growing up in Brooklyn, NY in the 80s; the radio was our guide to hip hop. The radio told us what was dope...toLd us what was wack. The radio actually played good music. Hip hop was so ingrained into the cultural fabric of Brooklyn in the 80s, that they didn't necessarily have to play "rap" all day, but it was still hip hop.You can't understand unless you were there: 10:00 pm on a Friday night on 98.7 KISS-FM in 1988 was like Barrack Obama election rallies on your block. It was just that serious!
The "urban" radio stations in the Baltimore/Metro DC area: 92.3 WERQ, 93.9 WKYS, 95.5 WPGC all follow the same format. WERQ possibly has the most variety and "freshness." They still have their top 10 playlist of songs that they play once every 2 hours, but WERQ seems to go deeper into albums and play songs that aren't currently on the "playlist."
Honestly, I can't and don't listen to the radio much anymore.
Is the radio necessary anymore, with ITunes and digital music, blogs and other websites dropping new music and albums. Will the radio be the new magazine/newspaper industry? Are the "youngans" still listening to the radio? Is the radio just for them?
And beleive me; I'm not trying to hurt the radio industry or take food out of any radio personality's mouth...I'm just listing some clear observations.
Check out some of my other articles:
- What do you know about Drake.
- How do you rate MCs?
- Get Familiar with Diamond District.
- Eminem's killing again.
Comments
pandora . com
exactly!
I reads the blog son..I had to respond.
I read you blog fam it's good. I'm not a hater but I gotta disagree. The Mr Magic show and Chuck Chuck Chillout and Red Alert were official but to quote PE "we get on the mix way in the night." Hip was infrequently played. It was the guide for some because they weren't quite yet underground. I liked Tricky Tee never came on radio. If you remember we had to tape the show and listen to that tape all week. Come on man. And sometimes DJ would do parties and they'd run the show 3 weeks in a row!!! I could time the damn show. No clock. 2 more songs house music. There were no good old days. The radio has been and will be a commercial (dying) BEAST.
I totally understand that radio is a business just like anything else and they are bound to appeal to the avid listener. Kids want to hear Soulja Boy every 5 minutes and never get sick of it. But, its just ridiculous. It seems to me that Clear Channel Communications does a much better job of adding variety to their stations. As with most jobs, seasoned Djs seem to have more flexibility to play diverse music. Shoot, I heard Xscape on Donnie Simpson this morning and was jamming.
I totally agree that Pandora is the way to go!
The problem with radio is exactly what you described without knowing it; you stopped listening and then came back. Much like we stores go out of business you think, I "used" to go there all the time, why did it close. When people stopped listening, they lost money and went from hundreds of owners across the country to 5 or 6 owners. With so few owners, all the stations are like franchises. When is the last time you went to two different Mc Donalds and saw a different menu. Even the websites are cookie cutter. The two you link to in the article (92.3 WERQ and 93.9 WKYS) are the same aside from a few layout changes.
DJ's are now syndicated, play lists are drawn up by now regional directors instead of station directors and the content on the radio is terrible.
The youngins are just more accustomed to a much simpler type of music experience than we were growing up. Repetition and simplicity rules the music scene instead of creativity and individualism.
www.dontdiehiphop.com - Let's Bring Hip Hop Back!
Actually if u think back it was the 90's when commercial hiphop began it's down fall, and also the invention of fragmented radio, meaning the mask term for black radio aka urban, urban contemorary, what those 2 distictions created was a generational gap between youn and old, if you are from brooklyn then you must remember that you didn't have to wait till 10 pm to hear hiphop songs, kiss fm had hiphop songs in it's regular rotation, before they put on red alert and chuck chill on back then, but also remeber back then the music had content and context to it, during the early 90's if you can remember you had a big so-called growth in hiphop, meaning it became mainstreamed in america, but also with that being mainstream it lost it's purity and also lost it's content, that is why since the mid 90's we have been subject to nonsence parading itself as commercial hiphop,and hiphop radio, this is hitting some now, but the seeds to what u may see now were planted 17years ago.
I Chicago, I hear those same songs over and over that you mentioned too. They also add old school hip hop from the 90's. Plus there is urdan contemporary radio stations. The music is being sorted and separated. Maybe that could be the problem with radio music. They are competing with ITunes,Youtube and so on. Everyone is into 'underground' music. So the stations have to find the right sound for it's listener. This effect commercial advertizers. In order to get decent black music back on the radio, we have to purchase, request, and support real rap, hip hop, and R&B music. So they can play them on the radio.
I AGREE. CHECK THE LYRICS TO KRS 1 MY PHILOSOPHY
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