Hot 97-NY's Number One Station For Blazin' Hip Hop & Racism

Taken from www.DaveyD.com 

The question we should all be asking is why are big corporations that are allowed to outsource jobs and get huge tax breaks and other economic perks from the government allowed to get away with so much?

Last year we saw most of the corporate media ban together to lobby FCC Chair Michael Powell and Congress so that they could be allowed to remove any limits on the amount of media outlets they could own.
Having spoken at some of those hearings I heard endless arguments including from outgoing chair Powell that if we gave the media conglomerates what they want, they could serve the public better. Oh yeah? In what way?

Are they going to play more then the same 10 songs we hear from coast to coast? Are they going to add another 15 minutes to their one hour weekly public affairs show?

Meanwhile while most of us are fighting to stop all sorts of craziness impacting our neighboorhoods and day to day life, ranging from school closings to police brutality to a rapidly rising prison population, we have corporations denying us any sort of fair shake in when it comes to publicizing our concerns.

In the backroom of some of these radio stations like a Hot 97 you have 50 year old executives who greenlight daily assaults on our pysche and sensabilities with garbage like the Tsunami song or pictures like the one you just clicked through. And again they are lobbying hard to get more stations.

While this is going on, we have those same 50 year old executives denying the words Free Mumia to be aired in a Public Enemy song or the name George Bush to be mentioned in a Jadakiss song.

The same bunch who played the Tsunami song and then had these pictures and links to the song posted on the website would be immediately fired if they walked in the studio and started playing a new KRS, X-Clan, PE, dead prez or even an album cut off the new Nas album.
The same bunch would be fired if they granted an interview with a political prisoner activist like Pam Africa or Fred Hampton jr. They would be fired if they opened up their phone lines to discuss ways to Stop the War in Iraq. They would be fired if they started talking about genocide in Sudan.. Heck they could talk about the genocide that takes place in our own communities, but that might hit too close to home-since so many of these corporations that own media outlets are part of the problem..
Instead of doing an offensive Tsunami song, why couldn't this same creative, so called comedic bunch had put their brain power to good use and came up with a song clowning the policies of Condi Rice or George Bush? Why couldn't they go out and make jokes about our president being a former coke head and an alcoholic? Why couldn't they use their talent and precious air space to smash on Supreme Court nominee Alberto Gonzales? Certainly there is plenty of material to make folks laugh around the current crop of folks running this country.

Maybe the executives in the backroom wouldn't approve. Maybe they insisted on them not getting too deep and go after Third World people who suffered a great tragedy.

Let's be fair its not like Hot 97s morning crew are not intelligent people. A couple of years ago Miss Jones recieved high accolades for bringing attention to police brutality issues. Todd Lynn is a regular on comedy central which is home to insightful comedians like Jon Stewart and Dave Chappelle. Why couldn't they raise the bar?

The sad part in the whole scenario is at the end of the day, Hot 97's Morning Crew will be the fall guys for any of the mistakes greenlighted by those executives like Barry Mayo, Rick Cummings and any of the other supposedly responsible people who have been granted a license to use our public airwaves.

Something to think about...

Before reading this article, folks may wanna peep out the sound clips which comes courtesy of www.3030radio.com of what has lead up to all this drama..In addition everyone from MSNBC to the Village Voice have picked up on this story

Here you have the infamous Tsunami Song
www.3030radio.com/USA_For_Indonesia.mp3

Here you have the heated argument between Miss Jones and Asian Co-host Miss Info
easylink.playstream.com/d...onvert.wax

Here's the song that Jin put out in response to all this drama
www.alljin.com/Audio/Excl...sponse.mp3

An open Letter to the FCC About Hot 97
p076.ezboard.com/fpolitic...D=35.topic

HOT 97-NEW YORK'S NUMBER ONE STATION
FOR BLAZIN' HIP HOP AND RACIAL HATRED by Davey D

What more can one say about the vicious racial attacks and ridiculousness that has taken place over the past week on New York’s number one music station Hot 97. The incendiary remarks and disturbing ‘We are the World’ parody song directed towards Asians and the Tsunami victims appeared to be a cheap attempt by Emmis Broadcasting to draw attention from the light that was starting to shine on cross time rivals Power 105. Is it a plan that has backfired? Only time will tell.
Currently Hot 97 has had two major sponsors Jackson Hewitt and McDonald’s pulling advertising. The issue is going to be addressed this weekend at the Asians in the Music Business conference which is being held in San Francisco. Elected officials including city councilman Ruben Diaz are calling for an investigation and thousands of letters have been written to the FCC, FAIR and other media watch agencies. All this activity does not include the letters and phone calls that are taking place amongst Asian Pacific Islander communities around the country that see this latest attack as yet another crude attempt by corporate media to marginalize and render a significant segment of the US’s population and the World’s population ‘invisible’

With regards to Hot 97, controversy has been what they thrive off of hence my initial statement about time will tell if this makes or breaks them. This is the same Hot 97 that came under fire because of shoot outs in front of their station involving the camps of rival rappers Lil Kim and Foxy Brown.

This is the same Hot 97 that made headlines when star deejay Funkmaster Flex beat down a female deejay Steph Lover who he felt had disrespected him by granting an interview to Nas who accused him of taking payola.

This is the same Hot 97 that had Hip Hop icons like KRS-One and most recently Afrika Bambaataa unabashedly say the station does take pay for air play.

This is the same Hot97 that came under fire for airing racially divisive remarks from one of their guests during the Miss Jones morning show and had folks referring to Russell Simmons as Coon Simmons.
This is corporate owned media at its finest. Hot 97 the station with that likes to say it’s a station with No Colorlines yet seems to draw them everyday when it comes to marginalizing entire communities for the sake of ratings.

HOT 97'S BACKGROUND AND LOVE AFFAIR w/ CONTROVERSY
For those who aren’t aware, for years Hot 97 has been the number one station in the New York City market place. For years they had a lock on Hip Hop and R&B and had even adopted the slogan ‘The epicenter of Hip Hop. All their jocks have enjoyed and continue to enjoy high visibility and sometimes notoriety above and beyond the boundaries of the Big Apple. They are in movies, featured in documentaries, regulars on MTV or BET and some have even released their own albums. Hot 97 over the years was home to stellar Hip Hop icons like Red Alert, Afrika Bambaataa, Moni Love, Fatman Scoop, Ed Lover and Dr Dre, Funkmaster Flex and Angie Martinez to name a few.

Over the past couple of years Hot 97 has seen their dominance challenged by Clear Channel station Power 105. Although they have managed to stay on top, it hasn’t been easy. That challenge for the number one spot recently became more intense when Power reached out and acquired Hot 97’s former controversial morning team Star and Buckwyld.

For years Hot 97’s morning spot was held down by Ed Lover and Doctor Dre who many of us got to know as the hosts of the now defunct ‘Yo MTV Raps’. In the mid 90s Ed and Dre were given offers to head out west to Los Angeles and do mornings at KKBT the Beat. This left a void that was eventually filled by Star and Buckwyld who were relatively unknown at that time.

The duo assembled a team and a cast of characters which included former Motown R&B singer Miss Jones. They borrowed a few pages from Howard Stern, turned up the heat and soon became the guys you loved to hate. They totally redefined urban morning radio with their over the top antics which included them boldly and shamelessly putting Hip Hop personalities on blast or doing what many might consider tasteless jokes.

Star and Buck were the pair that made headlines when they made fun of Aaliyah’s plane crash two days after her death. They were the guys who publicly ridiculed BET’s Big Tigger by calling him a ‘Bell-Hop Negro and invited him to do something about it.

Star and Buck would also entice their audience by doing things like dedicating entire shows with the theme of Puerto Ricans versus Dominicans while inviting callers to weigh in on this ethnic rivalry.
They would sometimes get into physical confrontations with their superstar guest including one memorable one involving Nelly. If folks didn’t like their bold and brash ways they would go the air and give out their addresses in Brooklyn and tell people to roll through and get knuckled up. No one had seen or heard urban radio move in this direction and while many complained about their controversial approach, they had clearly found a winning formula that was supported by their high ratings.
Star and Buck ‘kept it real’ by regularly buttin’ heads with Hot 97’s management. They would share their behind the scenes run ins with the audience and put folks them on blast by referring to them as greedy Jews who controlled the industry. Many saw this as a bold and even fearless move considering New York’s large active Jewish population. These guys would do this all the time and somehow survive the storm. You name it Star and Buck went there. It wasn’t long before they started out rating Stern himself as lead host Star not Stern became to guy who put the ‘S’ in shock.

Eventually Star and Buck had a major run in with Hot 97’s management, in particular the station’s then new general manager Barry Mayo. There was a period of time where they would go on the air and refer to Mayo who is a long time industry vet as a house Negro. These run-ins coupled with reported contract disputes resulted in the Star and Buck leaving Hot 97 and creating a huge void in New York’s urban morning show landscape. Because of non-compete contract restrictions they could not and would not be heard on the airwaves in NY for at least two years.
This meant that everyone from Ed and Dre who had now returned to New York and took up residence at rival station Power 105 to Doug Banks who had taken over at WBLS, had all attempted to win over the crowd that Star and Buck had garnered. Hot 97 tried to maintain their number one position by playing what seemed to be a cat and mouse game. To start, they would not officially announce that Star and Buck were terminated. Instead they told listeners that the pair were on suspension. Many speculated that this was done to keep Emmis’ stock prices from falling because the duo had pulled such high ratings. Cedric Muhammed of the website Blackelectorate.com penned an insightful article around this strategy which underscored that point. www.blackelectorate.com/a...sp?ID=1280

Hot 97 attempted to keep their ratings by having a slew of rotating hosts which included rap stars Cam’ron, Joe Budden and Sway of MTV who had the longest stint and was responsible for bringing in Asian co-host Miss Info to do news and commentary. All the while Hot 97 never would seriously promote any of their morning show. There was no mention of the hosts on the website and oftentimes, at least during Sway’s one year tenure, they would make reference that they were only filling in for Star and Buckwyld.

One of the interesting things to note is that while there were attempts to move away from the controversial approach employed by the departed dou, internally there was pressure to ramp things up and keep the ‘hate flowing’ especially when it came to mornings. Even Sway who as a morning show personality out on the West coast had shunned that sort of approach, found himself doing the Star and Buckwyld routine. One memorable show involved singer Jaheim who was confronted with some in your face invasive questions about his sexual preference. He wound up breaking microphones and causing a ruckus in the studio.
Eventually Hot 97 decided to put their resources behind former Star and Buck team member Miss Jones, who normally broadcasts from her home studio in Philadelphia, but through the magic of technology makes it sound like she’s live in the studio.

All this is being pointed out so folks who aren’t familiar can understand that the culture of controversy and tasteless antics is not a direction simply decided upon by some out of control jocks. Yes, we can all point to a few exceptions like Howard Stern, but for the most part whether it’s publicly admitted or not, in the world of commercial radio, corporate owners sit down and encourage if not pressure their people as to what direction they should head.

If they decide to go in the direction of being over the top and tasteless, the corporate owners and management team have usually thought of several contingency plans that will allow them to put on a good face and ride out the storm of outrage they may have caused.

MANAGING CONTROVERSY AND PHONE CALLS
In the case of Miss Jones and the anti-Asian racial comments, I had remarked to a friend that because of all the uproar and an impending protest this Friday morning at Caroline’s Comedy club, what Hot 97 is likely to do is suspend the morning show and make it appear like the management is as upset with the tasteless antics as the public at large. Ironically I woke up this morning to discover that has in fact happened the morning team has been suspended. Not only that, but they had put on E-Bro their music director to take calls about the controversy. Many of the calls noted that they wanted the morning team back. However, what isn’t often shared is how calls are screened behind the scenes.
We can’t say for sure what was going on with E-Bro and the calls he was airing since we weren’t in the studio, but in the past radio stations have been notorious for airing callers who fit a certain demographic to appeal to a targeted audience. For example, a jock may be encouraged to air women callers or people who are older. A lot of times they are discouraged from airing folks who sound ‘too ghetto’ (translation Black and from the hood). In some markets a premium is placed on Latin sounding callers. There’s definitely a science behind what gets aired. In addition most calls are recorded in between songs, edited and then played back. The end game is not to give the listeners a platform to express themselves, but to give the illusion of providing listeners a platform. I would not be surprised if Hot 97 wasn’t ‘managing’ their calls and swinging the on air remarks in a particular direction.

The other attempts being used to placate listeners was to have Miss Jones donate one week’s salary to the tsunami victims and give what many sensed was an insincere apology on the air.

This morning (Wednesday) Hot 97 added to the illusion by playing a scathing dis track by Asian rapper Jin who was apparently upset about the station using Asians as their comedic scapegoat. This of course lead to E-Bro airing phone calls of angry people expressing their outrage at Jin and even turning it into a racial thing of Blacks versus Asian.

If the my hunches are on point, then this was done to send a message out to listeners that a lot of people were not feeling Jin’s song and that there is some underlying beef between these two ethnic groups. All this coming at the hands of Emmis Broadcasting who are desperate to maintain their narrowing lead over rival Clear Channel.They seem to be saying, let’s cause stress and strife between two ethnic groups and hide behind the scenes and not acknowledge the central role they played in this.

Keep in mind, everything that goes on air is controlled. Nothing gets on unless the management wants it. Ask anyone who was doing radio after 9-11 and see what instructions they were asked to follow. Ask any jock who has seen their station involved with a controversy like a big fight at a summer jam concert and how the management would leave strict instructions not to air certain calls. Why would Hot 97 suddenly air calls that pit Blacks against Asians? Perhaps to redirect attention from the controversy they caused in the first place.

What Hot 97 may be doing is what other media outlets have done in the past during turbulent times. They are likely to reach out and either cultivate a certain type of media coverage that has a favorable spin or use their resources to actually have a story that could do damage to them killed.

SPIN AND DAMAGE CONTROL
Case in point, about 10 years ago a Bay Area radio station [KYLD] decided to make noise and cause controversy by stopping traffic on the San Francisco Bay Bridge. The premise was to mock what then President Clinton had done when he held up airplane flights by insisting on getting a shave while his plane was parked on the runway.
The lead jock Mancow Muller sent out his side kick Chuy Gomez to gather up some friends and stop traffic on the bridge. The act caused a massive 10 hour traffic jam and brought Mancow and the station nationwide attention. It also sparked off a nationwide debate about shock jocks and responsibility. What happened next was interesting to watch. The first, thing was to note how management at the station played dumb and acted shocked that one of their deejays would be so irresponsible. The jocks were suspended, but everyone behind the scenes was given themselves high fives and celebrating the accomplishment of getting the spotlight to shine in their direction.

Next, we had Mancow who is now a jock in Chicago, getting credit for driving on the bridge and stopping traffic. In fact his lofty gig in Chicago was his reward. Mancow never left the studio He never went near the bridge. In fact Chuy who now does mornings on sister station KMEL, came real close to being deported as a result of this incident. He was not a US citizen at the time. It was interesting to see how all the press was directed toward Mancow and how they kept talking about how he went out and stopped traffic. More importantly it was interesting to see how the public was sold the illusion of harsh punishment being dealt in the form of suspensions and public apologies, while all the time from top to bottom it was celebrated.                    

These patterns of the management and corporate media owners playing dumb while strategically redirecting listeners attention away from the real brains behind controversial shock jock acts are all too common place in the high stakes radio game. From the looks of things this is what is going down at Hot 97. It’s classic bait, switch and stall tactics.

CONCLUSION
Behind the scenes, we are likely to see folks giving praise to Miss Jones for keeping the media attention away from Star and Buck on their Clear Channel rival while simultaneously bringing nationwide attention to Hot 97. Because the Asian community is not a demographic that is usually measured in the ratings system they were an easy target. In other words if they as a group do not listen to Hot 97, it will not be reflected in an antiquated arbitron system that carefully tracks whites, Latinos and Blacks and usually relegates Asians to either ‘Other’ or combines them with whites. In a city that is 60% Black and Latino, they were the easy target.

The fact that we have victims in a third world country that does not have a powerful lobby that will be supported by the mainstream press also meant that they were easy targets. Compare the outrage and fallout of Prince Harry wearing a Nazi uniform and how it was covered in the press versus a major corporate radio station ridiculing the deaths of 200 thousand people in the third world. People are being told to lighten up, it was just a bad joke and lets move on, while Harry is being pushed to take a public tour of the old Nazi Concentration camps.

Compare the outcry and punishment that befell individuals who dared make fun of the 9-11 tragedy or the punishment that was dealt to those who even voiced an opposing opinion as to why this happened and what should be our response. We all recall how ABC Bill Maher lost his show when he remarked that the US soldiers were cowards compared to the 9-11 hijackers.

My point being is that when the management is behind you egregious remarks and actions are protected while they play a game of ‘being upset’. When you cross the line and management isn’t in on it, your ass is out of here..

So in a nutshell, Ms Jones and her crew decided to make headlines at the expense of the Asian community and the Tsunami victims. And it probably came with the implicate blessings of her program director John Dimick and her general manger Barry Mayo.

Now all they seem to be doing is figuring out how to skillfully managed the controversy.

The end game is to have Hot 97 be on the tips of everyone’s tongues.. After all the only bad news in this industry is no news at all and lets face it, we ain’t heard nothing about Star and Buck since this whole thing blew up...

The bottom line is that we cannot take what comes across our airwaves lightly. Nor can we turn the other way and not see the huge corporation that is behind the scenes supporting, orchestrating and encouraging many of the decisions we have to live with day in and day out.
Right now Miss Jones and her morning team are suspended, but trust me folks that’s only for show. They are hoping this incident will go away and people will forget and start focusing their attention on upcoming things like ‘The Superbowl’ or ‘American Idol’, the impending arrests of Irv Gotti and his Murder Inc staff or the latest twist involving Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Better yet, the station might suddenly come up with a huge concert to ‘raise money’ for the Tsuanmi Victims and all of us will be excited about seeing 50 Cent, The Game and Jadakiss versus dealing with the serious issues of racism and racial hatred being hawked and sold by corporate media outlets like Hot 97. As I said before only time will tell….

Below are resources with more info and petitions
End Hate Petition
www.petitiononline.com/en...ition.html
Stop Hot 97 Petition
www.petitiononline.com/ts...ition.html
HipHopMusic.com Blog by fellow Pacifica Radio Host from WBAI
J Smooth
www.hiphopmusic.com/
Edited by: mrdaveyd at: 1/28/05 6:35 am

 

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 To all my peeps I met over the weekend at SF's "Asian American Music Conference" (see photos above): Maybelle Briosos, Myra Alcaide, Christina Luna, Brian Samson (Def Jam), Arnold Noche, Ray Lum (www.TheMagicOfRayLum.com) , E-Man (Power 106-L.A.), Janette Baxa (House Of Blues), DJ Roslynn (Life Is Like A Box of Chocolates! thank u & mahal kita), Lisa Phuaphes (Ascap), Albert Lao (Sony), Hassan, Marian Liu (Mercury News), Leroy (Lumpia), Dorothy Reyes (Bento), Domino (Hiero), ASIA Continental, DJ Amen, Dee Sonoram (Koch), Rockberry Benson, Roddy Rod (Jive), Davey-D (KPFA), EA-Ski, Nancy Yap (Up Above), DJ Slammin' Sam, Marjorie Castaneda, Rick "Dragon" Lee (KMEL), DJ Beth, K K (my OG pinoy brotha outta KPOO), Mind Motion, Alex Rotodo, Walt Liquor, Shortkut (Triple Threat), Collin & Owen ( my bi-jitsu brothas), Jeff & Mark, Alex (T Mobile), Chuy Gomez (KMEL) & Dan "The Automator"...

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