What's upper?

This years' "Bum Squad DJz 2006 Family Reunion" held in Los Angeles last week was the ish. Much love & props to Latin Prince for puttin' it down & to all the dj's who flew in & drove to this 3 day event. It was so awesome to vibe with all the dj's. The highlight of this years Bum Squad event had to be DJ Revolution demonstrating his skills on the new "TTM 57 mixer with the built in Serato. (see photo above). What I witnessed Revolution do live was absolutely amazing. Here's what Jessica Weber had to say that pretty much raps up what went down with the Bums, "So the Bumsquad conference was hella fun. props to Latin Prince for doing it big and making it happen. I didn't get to attend all the conference activities, but the parties i did go to were hot. LITERALLY. the Interscope mansion joint on saturday was sweltering, but it was completely worth dealing with the heat to see Snoop, Daz, and hella other west coast heads braving the heat and kicking it with us poolside.

Friday night the Warner showcase was pretty hot too, mostly cause The Federation was live as fuck. get them and Rick Rock together on stage and it's a done deal. them dudes know how to put on a show. their latest signing J Roc was pretty interesting too. Kweli was supposed to be there, but wasn't.

The highlight of the weekend was Saturday night's Hot 92's 90's reunion summer jam thingy. it was SWV, En Vogue, Bel Biv Devoe and Bobby Brown, and that shit was BANANAS. Definitely one of the best shows I have ever seen. it totally reminded me why I loved RnB so damn much, although it the words of Nick Huff, "They definitely do not make RnB like they used to". either way, that shit was off the hook. Bel Biv Devoe and Bobby Brown were bananas, believe it or not, those cats have not missed a step. AND Bobby Brown brought out Johnny Gill, which was insane. Peace to Darin Gloe for pushing me to go to this shit. I can't believe I even THOUGHT about flaking on this show."

Now get ready for this years "RAP ATTACK REUNION 2006" coming to the Big Apple!"...

www.RapAttackLives.com has the SIDEKICK 3 - T Mobile hook up $299.00 contact: ALEX @ vtxguy408@yahoo.com ...

Is Hip Hop's Audience Really 80% White?  By Davey D
In recent days a debate has ensued on my website http://www.daveyd.com, around one of Hip Hop's biggest myths. It started in 1991 when Newsweek Magazine did a cover story on Gangsta Rap and in their article they put out an un-researched statistic that said 80% of Hip Hop's audience is white and that its reflected in record sales. That stat has been bantered about ever since as an undisputable stone cold fact.

Adding to this myth was a conversation that took place at the Gavin Convention in San Francisco around the same time when Ice T during a panel discussion stated that anything above his average 750 thousand record sales was attributed to white kids.

But is this really true? Granted if one goes to a Mos Def show or even a Wu-Tang concert you will see a majority white audience in many cities, but does that translate to that 80% white audience? How does an all white Wu-Tang show in Northern Cali compare to a sold out predominantly Black T.I. or Yung Joc show in Atlanta or in Oakland? How does that compare to a sold out predominantly Latino Psycho Realm or Sick Symphony show in East LA?

Back in 91 when this 80% first surfaced, there was no study or methodology that that kept track of race when it came to album sales. About the closest one could come was by estimating based upon record stores in a particular area, but that would yield far from accurate results. To start in many areas, folks from different ethnic backgrounds would frequent stores that were in sections of a city dominated by one race. For example, if you came to Berkeley in Northern Cali, you found three main record stores up near the UC campus in an area that was statistically majority white. Folks from all over including predominantly Black South Berkeley and majority Black Oakland shopped at those stores. How were statistics based on purchases by race kept?

The truth of the matter is that this 80% white Hip Hop fan myth has long been a nice marketing tool used by media corporations to justify ad revenues for Top 40 radio stations. Here's a little background on this.

Back in the late 80s and early 90s, many rap artists complained how the urban (Black) radio stations did not play rap except on the weekends and even then it was only in the mix late at night. Chuck D highlighted this concern in his song 'Don't Believe the Hype'. He goes into further detail about this lack of support by Black urban programmers in a song called 'How to Kill a Radio Consultant'.

According to Black radio programmers they avoided playing rap, because it was affecting their advertising. In spite of Hip Hop's cross over success with groups like Run DMC and the 'positive, vibe that existed within rap at that time-(it was the Golden Era), many companies associated Hip Hop with violence done by Black people. Hence a Black radio station playing Hip Hop was likely to have difficult time getting money.

The Showdown Between Urban & Top 40 Radio Over Hip Hop
Around this time several prominent Top 40 radio stations were starting to aggressively play Hip Hop. Most notably was KMEL in San Francisco which became very successful and quickly moved into the number one spot over its urban competition KSOL which had been number one for years.

This sparked a lot of controversy and resulted in a big face off in 1992 at the Gavin Convention in San Francisco between Black urban programmers and white Top 40 stations that were starting to play Hip Hop. The packed panel discussion was hosted by Lee Michaels an African American editor at Gavin who interestingly had laid down the groundwork and started Top 40 giant KMEL which went on to win Best Rap Station in the country 5 years in a row. He posed the question as to weather or not Top 40 stations should be playing Rap or were they exploiting it?

The argument put forth by Black programmers was that they were playing the music but not getting both the ad dollars and promotions benefits from record companies. They talked about how the industry had a dirty secret which two sets of rules and budgets, one for Black urban stations which were small and one for Top 40 stations which in some cases were 3 to 4 times bigger. These budget disparities were also reflected in the Black music departments of and the Crossover and Pop music departments of the record labels

They went on to talk about how major labels would come to town and show support to these urban stations by giving them a bunch of tapes and later CDs for giveaway to the audience while across town these new pop stations playing rap were given huge prizes like tickets and all expense paid flyaways to music awards and album release parties.

Black programmers contended that they were responsible for breaking a lot of the urban music into the market place only to see their cross town Top 40 rivals reap the benefits.

The biggest point of contention was that these Top 40 stations were being allowed to keep their Top40/ CHR classification in popular industry trades like Gavin, Billboard and R&R which kept them in a higher budget class.

Hence Top 40 stations could walk into an ad agency and even though their playlist was 90% identical to their urban counterparts they could walk away with a higher ad rate even if they were not number one in the marketplace. Plus they wouldn't have any negative stigma attached to them for playing rap. A white Top 40 station playing rap weighed differently in the minds of ad buyers compared to a Black station playing rap.

The top 40 programmers countered by saying that many of the urban stations were missing the boat by not playing rap. I remember it being said that the urban stations were not staying close to the streets and paying attention to what was going on with their own kids who no longer wanted to hear slow jamz and sappy R&B songs.

They also insisted that they keep their Top 40 classification. What they emphasized was that Hip Hop was the new Top 40 and that was what was being reflected in the playlists was what the mainstream (white audience) now wanted to hear. The compromise to this particular point was the creation of a new classification called Churban which meant Crossover-urban. However it got applied to the Top 40 stations playing rap and not to the urban stations so in many people's mind they were still seen as Top 40 crossover entities

They also pointed out that like their urban counterparts their sales departments had a difficult time convincing ad buyers to purchase time on a station playing rap. One of the Top 40 programmers pointed out that this was a competitive field no matter how you sliced it and that it was up to the urban programmers not only to put together a strong programming team, but to also have a strong sales team as well that could successful convince skeptical advertiser to purchase air time.

What wasn't stated and this is where this 80% myth comes in, is the fact that the Top 40 stations had this Newsweek quote along with their CHR status that they could present to ad buyers. Essentially they were able to say, 'yes we're playing Public Enemy, NWA and 2 Live Crew' which we (KMEL) was doing at that time, 'but this is what the mainstream (white audience wants). Look at this Newsweek article. It's proof positive that 80% of the people who like this aggressive music are the main ones purchasing it. I recall specifically seeing sales kits with that page and quote highlighted.

The bottom line whether we like it or not is that many advertisers have a hierarchy of who they want as consumers. It may be as follows depending on the product; White males between 18-34, White males 25-54, White women 25-34. Women of color 25-34, white teens etc. Last on the list is often time Black males. The pervasive belief is that white males have the most disposable income and can afford to purchase expensive appliances, cars and computers.

Women are desirable because they not only have income of their own, but usually influence the purchasing in households if they are married.

Black men, especially young males are seen in many instances as unwelcome. We all got a glimpse of this several weeks ago with the Cristal debacle where their spokesperson dissed Hip Hop artists for supporting them. He said all the mentions by artists like Jay-Z and P-Diddy was 'unwelcome attention'. Author and former ad agency executive Hadji Williams in his book 'Don't Knock the Hustle' underscores a lot of what I've written and goes into greater depth about all this in his book.

So it's with all this in mind that we can better understand how and why this 80% myth was sold over and over again. It was if people's lives depended on it or in this case, people's livelihoods depended upon it.

Now the real question was weather or not Top 40 stations KMEL and later stations like Hot 97 in New York and Power 106 in Los Angeles which followed suit a couple of years later really had large white listening audiences.

Asians, White Folks, Arbitron and Hip Hop
Well as I mentioned earlier one of the first and more successful Top 40 stations to embrace rap was KMEL who's sale staff definitely flipped that Newsweek quote their advantage. They had another thing to help them out, and that was Arbitron Ratings to show large white listener-ship.

If I remember correctly we were boosting a number one rating with half our audience being white. However, you wouldn't have known that from the large numbers of people of color who would show up at our events. You never saw like 50% of our crowds being white. It was always explained that many of our white listeners weren't our 'active' P1 listeners who would enthusiastically show up at station functions. I later learned something different.

What wasn't really publicly known or even taken into account was how Asians were classified when it came to radio ratings. They were always counted as white people. You see in the Bay Area where KMEL is based there is a huge Asian/Pacific Islander population. In San Francisco more then 50% of the population is Asian with Chinese followed by Filipino being the largest ethnic groups. Outside of their respective countries, the largest concentration of Filipinos, Tongans and Cambodians live in the Bay Area. There's a sizeable Vietnamese, Korean Samoan and Laotian populations. Many of the people within these Asian groups have grown up and listen primarily to urban music. Many of the younger people went from listening to Latin Freestyle to Hip Hop as stations like KMEL evolved.

I recall when the Arbitron people came to our station to talk about ratings and this fact about Asians being counted as whites was made clear one of our Asian deejays damn near hit the roof and went off. She wanted to know why Asians did not have their own category and she said she found it offensive that they would put an entire population down as whites. She noted that it played into the model minority myth that was impacting a lot of Asian communities and it also added to this pervasive perception of them being an invisible group of people.

The Arbitron rep said he understood the concerns and acknowledged that although the Asian population was growing, it would be a while before they would count Asians as a separate group away from whites. Nevertheless the large amount of 'white listeners' enjoyed by Top 40 urban leaning stations in California was touted to advertisers and helped rake in a substantial amount of ad dollars. It was later estimated that the actual percentage of white listeners was more like 20% when we subtracted the Asian count, but we never really knew for certain.

But lets suppose for the moment many of these Top 40 Hip Hop radio stations have large white audiences as asserted with the 80% myth, why is that we rarely hear many of the artists being played in regular rotation that we know for fact have a large white audience?

When was the last time we heard Living Legends, Del, Sage Francis, Atmosphere etc etc? We might hear an Eminem song, but hardly a Mos Def, Public Enemy or even Talib Kweli. The aforementioned artists seem to always have packed houses at their shows. Some of those groups do pretty well in record sales as independent artists, but dont hear them now and we didnt in the past-why is that? Shouldnt they be getting airplay to satisfy the tastes of this 80% white audience?

Who is Hip Hop's Biggest Ethnic Supporter?
So now that we understand how and why the 80% myth came about lets look at the results of an actual study that was done.In January 2003 Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow Push organization held their 6th Annual Wall Street project conference. In the past Jackson had not put together panels focusing on the entertainment industry and its impact on Wall Street, but that year he did. He put together is memorable standing room only panel which included some very distinguished guests including; former Vibe Magazine CEO Keith Clinkscales of Vanguarde Media, Carol H Williams of Carol H Williams Advertising, Thomas Burrell of Burrell Communications, Samuel Chisholm of the Chisholm Group, James L Winston of the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters and Daisy Exposito-Ulla of the Bravo Group

The Bravo Group is part of the powerful Young and Rubicam company is considered the third largest multicultural agency in the US. The panel discussion talked about market share and leveraging dollars. During the discussion Daisy Exposito Ulla was making her remarks and while it wasn't the main focus she mentioned that her company had done a study and come to find that the Latinos are the biggest purchasers of Rap music. They buy more rap music than both African Americans and whites.

Because this wasn't a Hip Hop specific panel her remarks were made in the context of talking about some other issues, what she was not met with any big gasp from the audience or anything like that. But for me I took special note as she continued her presentation, because it basically coincided with the push in broadcast media to target Latinos as a primary audience. http://www.daveyd.com/articlelainsupport.html

Yes, Hip Hop is large and everybody enjoys it. And yes, a large part of that audience are white folks. But 80%? No way. Unfortunately white Hip Hop fans were used to validate to skittish advertisers and even venue owners that Hip Hop is safe and non threatening. To me its no different and just as bad as those programmers and industry experts who hawk Black gangsterism and stereotypes and make it appear as if its a vital part of Black culture and a true representation of Hip Hop.

"ROCK THE BELLS," one of the biggest Hip-Hop music festivals in the country, returns on Saturday, August 5 at the NOS Events Center in San Bernardino in Southern California. This year's line-up includes the Wu-Tang Clan featuring a tribute to ODB, Mos Def, Taib Kweli, Redman, De La Soul, Aesop Rock, Living Legends, DEL The Funky Homosapien, Immortal Technique, MURS 3:16, Visionaries, Self Scientific and Planet Asia, plus more acts to be announced. For more info, visit www.rockthebells.net...

It is finally here fam. www.MixRevolution.com! I invite you to log on now & join (it's FREE). Here's what MixRevolution.com is all about!

Brief Description…

    Mix Revolution.Com is a NEW ONLINE COMMUNITY STRICTLY FOR DJs!  This is the first of its kind attempting to bring together DJs of all genres from all over the world to one website… MixRevolution.Com.  

Features…

They offer many community based services such as ;

PERSONAL PROFILE SECTION (much like Myspace.Com)

-Can personalize it by uploading your own pictures

-Post your own bio

-Can send private messages to other members on the site

-Can tag someone else’s site

*Ability to upload own music/mixes (COMING SOON…)

INDUSTRY NEWS

-Latest industry news, events, and product reviews.

NEW MUSIC

-Exclusive audio

*Ability to download mp3s (COMING SOON…)

FEATURED DJS

-DJs making noise in their market

FEATURED ARTISTS

-Up and coming and established artists

MESSAGEBOARDS

MOST IMPORTANTLY, MIX REVOLUTION GIVES MEMBERS MORE OF A REASON TO GET INVOLVED IN THE COMMUNITY….

INCENTIVE BASED SURVEYS

- Take as many surveys to earn points towards redeeming for prizes such as an Xbox 360s, Limited Edition Ts, CDs, Vinyl, etc.

CHART SECTION

-Submit charts that record label reps have access to…

Why get involved…

    There is finally a site out there that puts aside musical tastes and focuses on bringing the DJ community closer together.  It’s about family, helping each other out, and supporting each other because of a common love…DJing.  If you are a DJ of legendary status, its time to give back to the community that supported you.  If you are a bedroom DJ, its time to interact with DJs you look up to.  DJs from legendary to bedrooms will all finally get a chance to interact with one another.  What’s not to love about the concept?! 

ATTN Labels & DJ's, it is very important that you email us your weekly priorities so we can post it on our site. I'll need your artist name, song title & record label PLUS the MP3 (clean).

Email that weekly on Mondays to: radiopriorities@mixrevolution.com

MixRevolution.com will have three TOP 30 Charts starting June 6, 2006:

Mixshow/Crossover

Underground/College Rap Radio

Mixshow/Underground

Coolwadda is about to drop his next single "From Behind" (Asphalt) featuring the Yay's Keek Da Sneak & Kokane. Stay tuned...

The Hispanic market is startin' to make some real Underground Hip-Hop noise through Machete Records/Universal. I'm not talkin' bout' Reggaeton, I'm talkin' Hip-Hop! Be on the lookout for both Malverde & Tres Coronas to hit your turntables soon!...

FL's Riskay (The Drama Queen) has serviced our Rap Attack panel with her new mix cd featuring a couple of her own joints plus a couple of nice freestyles. Make sure you peep her spit on the phat new Deepside featuring R. Kelly "Let's Make Love."  For more info log onto: www.riskay.com or call (863) 286-1254...

Rap Attack takes a "WHAT'S UPPER" look this week with:

DJ Splash (Mixtape-MA): "Here's my new email address effective now: DJSPLASH@VERIZON.NET...

Edgie Kokoski (WUNH-NH): "Another week in the Granite State as we were about an inch away from having a full blown tornado on Tuesday. In my 26 years living here, I have never seen such violence in a storm. In about 5 minutes time, it went from overcast, to torrential downpour, to hurricane winds and golf ball size hail. I watched in amazement out of the office window as a moat formed around the building and people’s cars were pelted with hail that left dents. A couple of poor bastards even had their windshield broken. Luckily, my car received lesser damage, because I had wisely covered most of it with 20 copies of Lil Flip “I’m a Balla (Flip My Chips)”. Sadly even those did not prevent the 15 new dents that I have on my hood, roof, and trunk. As the storm passed through, the power went out in the whole town and I had to sit in the dark for 3 hours at work with nothing to do until my boss finally told me to go home. What a drag! 

Our station was also hit by lighting/power outages and our email has been out for 3 whole days. Thus - you are getting this email on Friday instead of Tuesday. Don’t worry promoters, I sent the chart on my personal email to the trades before the deadlines.

I guess my life could be worse if my name was Sadaam Sadaam or whoever that French soccer player is. Nothing tops off a legendary career like delivering a debilitating head butt to another player’s chest and getting ejected from the world championship game. If he wanted to shamefully end his career, he could have at least done something worthwhile like moon the crowd or pull a 17 year old girl out of the stands and make out with her. And by 17, I mean 13.                          Although I find the show entertaining, I think MTV would fare much better without “That 70’s Show” jack off Wilmer Valderama as the host. This punk bitch has no street cred, is mellow-dramatic, and is about as likable as me after 6 beers. I feel the same way about that rat-face that hosts “Fight Klub”. I’d like to grab him by his Rapunzel braids and punt him like a football"...

Kiz-One (KKFI-Kansas City): "Whatz good people, sorry if I haven’t been sending charts out lately, just been going through some things here on the home front. I was feeling like Nas for a second” I need a new cloud for this the black ni@# to follow, cause while it’s over me it’s to dark to see tomorrow”. 

 But I guess we all go through a depression every now and then. These gas prices are hurting me something terrible I tell you. I have to commute about an hour everyday to work and if gas goes up any more I might have to start siphon gas from my rich neighbors. LOL LOL"...

Brett Johnson (WUPX-MI): "As most of you know I have a location issues, I never seem to stay put for too long and that severely hurts me and you in the records servicing area. I again apologize but you can look forward to this move being my last for I fianlly purchased my own home!!! I am finally going to be playing big boy games. My NEW and final ADDRESS is below. I will also be having my assistant contacting you by phone to verify the change. Thank you for your patience and I look forward to continue working with you all. Peace and God Bless.

Brett Johnson
WUPX 91.5

FM1304 4th St.

Lake Odessa MI 48849

ob1.the.darkjedi@gmail.com

Papa-D (WRBB-Boston): "I am finally whipping up a website where yall djs can download mp's of the songs I promote... www.papadpromo.com is up and running"...

Here is our address for 2006 to send material for review, etc (vinyl & cd's)! Same address, just a new Ste. number:

 RapAttackLives.com

4750 Kester Avenue, Ste. 11

Sherman Oaks, CA 91403

Attn: Nasty-Nes

SHOUT OUT TIZIME: Happy Birthday this week to my good friend from way back in the "Rap It Up" days, Patrice Johnson celebrating on Monday, July 17th & to Brian Coulombe aka DJ Wicked Awesome celebrating this Saturday, July 22nd... To my Si Hing & mentor, Bruce Lee-R.I.P. (July 20th) & to my fam4life, DJ Tom Craven (R.I.P.)...

PEACE, LOVE & HIP-HOP UNITY (God Bless & Isa Mahal),

Nasty-Nes

(Pinoy Pride4Life / John 3:16)