On The Air... Paul Porter ... IndustryEars.com: March 2005

Thursday, March 31, 2005

NY DAILY NEWS "Give Rap a Break"

Give rap a break

Hip-hop culture doesn't deserve its recent bad press

The No. 1 rapper 50 Cent (above) has been targeted by critics because a member of his rival, The Game's (below,) posse was shot.

Acts like LL Cool J don't deserve the bad press that rap has gotten lately.

A lot of the folks who have been unloading on rap music and hip-hop culture in the last few weeks have been enjoying this beat-down just a little too much.

Now it's true that some rappers have not been doing their music any favors. While verbal posturing has always been part of rap, just like it was always part of "Dirty Harry" and John Wayne Westerns, the fun stops when the guns are real and loaded. Firing guns at anyone is bad business.

But hotheads with guns don't define hip hop any more than steroid junkies define baseball, and for all the talk about a dangerous hip-hop "crisis" right now, that turns out to be a confluence of unrelated events spread over several years.

It started because the most popular rapper of the moment, 50 Cent, cultivates an image of danger. He's also funny and self-aware, and the fact he strikes up verbal feuds with fellow artists only means he's doing something that was done years ago by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and John Lennon.

But a few weeks ago, after 50 publicly criticized The Game, a member of Game's entourage was wounded by gunfire outside radio station WQHT.

This gave critics a twofer. Not only could they blast 50, they could pounce again on Hot 97, which they say fans the flames of conflict, making itself part of an axis of cultural evil.

Hot 97, in defense, says that its listeners demand the most popular records and demand that the station ask the tough questions of the most popular rappers. If Hot's deejays don't, their rivals over at Power 105 would be only too happy to step in.

More to the point, neither Hot nor Power created hip-hop culture and it's problematic how much they shape it. If they changed their formats tomorrow to German oompah music, hip hop would march along exactly as it's marching now.

But Hot 97 is a lightning rod for critics, who fold together a handful of incidents over several years, some serious and some minor, to give the rather misleading impression that every day at Hot 97 plays like the opening scene of "Saving Private Ryan."

It's safe to say the current "crisis" will subside, as did the trumped-up "rap concerts are war zones" furor that dogged Run-DMC in the mid-'80s and the "rappers are out to destroy society" furor that followed Ice-T's "Cop Killer" in the early '90s. Today, of course, Ice-T plays a cop on television.

But the criticism will continue, because a lot of people just don't like rap. They think it's noise, no melody, not music at all. You know, all the things people once said about jazz and rock 'n' roll.

And that's fine. Everyone gets to like what they like.

With rap, though, the dislike often seems to go past the music to the people who make it. Rappers are viewed as dangerous. Because of their visibility, they become surrogates for everything people find disquieting about young people, urban youth and white kids who pick up on black culture.

Some recent criticism pinpoints exactly who or what in rap has gone out of line. That's fair, at times accurate, and deserves serious discussion.

But much of the criticism indicts all rappers and further carries the insulting implication that rap fans take nothing from the music except swaggering self-promotion, derogatory slaps at women and verbal violence.

Sure, fans hear all of that. You can't miss it. They also hear a lot more, which critics don't.

The huge majority understand, for instance, that violence in entertainment is a device, not a behavioral blueprint.

From the ancient Greeks up through opera, folk songs, detective novels and television, entertainment media have focused on excess, that is, behavior beyond normal standards, as a way of making a point.

WHY IT MATTERS

Audiences get this. Rap audiences get this. If violent lyrics really had the direct impact its critics warn about, America's streets would be knee-deep in dead rap fans - just as movie theaters would have been knee-deep in corpses after "Beverly Hills Cop" and living rooms every Sunday night after "Deadwood."

What we really need to do is take a step or two back and remember why hip hop, a style that's been under constant fire for 30 years, not only thrives today but has become our dominant popular music.

Because it speaks to its listeners.

Over 30 years it has said an enormous number of compelling things, some profound and some not, to tens of millions of people of all colors and persuasions.

From the love songs of LL Cool J and Usher to the hard rhymes of Public Enemy to the humor of Snoop Dogg, with a hundred thousand party and road mixes in between, hip hop has survived because it matters to its listeners. When it doesn't, and not before, it will go away.

Originally published on March 27, 2005

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COO of HOT97 calls it a "screw up"

Thursday, March 31, 2005
Jeff Smulyan Admits Revenue Drop After 'Tsunami Song' Fiasco

The head of Emmis Communications yesterday commented on the recent problems at CHR/Rhythmic WQHT (Hot 97)/New York, telling those in attendance at the Banc Of America Securities conference that he's "never seen a couple screw-ups like what we've seen in New York" -- namely the now-infamous "Tsunami Song" parody and a "Smackfest" promotion. Smulyan said, however, "It happens. In any business over a course of time, you're going to have things that go really right and things that go really wrong. The ironic thing is, if you look at the Arbitrend ratings that came out two days ago, Hot 97 had a wonderful book. I can tell you that it wasn't part of our plan to have this controversy that would increase our ratings, but clearly it has affected us."
Smulyan also notes that WQHT has seen some loss in business but has made some strides. "Some of the business we lost at Hot went to [Urban AC sister WRKS] Kiss, but I can't defend it," he said. "The 'Tsunami Song' was an egregious mistake; we're not proud of it." The Indianapolis Star recently reported that, according to unnamed Emmis officials, the company lost "millions" in advertising over the controversy surrounding Hot 97.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Indy Star on Emmis and HOT 97

Emmis faces the music for radio controversies

NYC station hurts image, profits over tsunami song, rap shooting

Protesters demonstrated in late January against Emmis Communications' Hot 97 (WQHT-FM) radio station in New York City for its airing of a parody called "The Tsunami Song," which mocked victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami. -- Bryan Bedder / Getty Images

Emmis Communications Corp.

By J.K. Wall

jk.wall@indystar.com

March 27, 2005

It has been a rough three months at Emmis Communications Corp.

Emmis' Hot 97 (WQHT-FM) station in New York sparked three rallies and loads of bad press by airing a song mocking victims of the Asian tsunami and because of a shooting outside its Greenwich Village offices between backers of two rival rap artists.

Meanwhile, Emmis still is struggling to convince investors on Wall Street that its radio businesses can grow in the face of competition from new technologies: satellites, the Internet and iPods.

The end of March seems a world away from early January. Then Chief Executive Jeff Smulyan hopped atop a sofa to praise his champagne-sipping employees at Emmis' Indianapolis headquarters after Fortune magazine named Emmis one of the 100 best places to work.

The celebration came just after Emmis posted strong third-quarter earnings and just before it announced the acquisition of a radio station in fast-growing Slovakia.

"You get the good with the bad," Smulyan said. "If you're in business long enough, you're going to get arrows. We've had more arrows in the last 60 days than we've ever had."

Indeed. The group that organized the New York rallies now is pressing advertisers and shareholders to dump Emmis.

"We're about saying to Emmis Communications, 'What you did was wrong, and you're going to pay a price for it,' " said Rosa Clemente, a leader of the rally organizer REACH, which stands for Representing Education, Activism & Community through Hip-Hop.

Hip-hop music has made Hot 97 wildly successful. It is the No. 2-rated station in New York and has ranked No. 1 among listeners ages 18 to 34 for eight straight years.

But Hot 97 has lost "millions" in revenue, Emmis officials said, because many advertisers stopped buying spots after the station played a parody called "The Tsunami Song" for four days in mid-January.

To the tune of "We Are the World," the song contained racial epithets and included lyrics such as: "Go find your mommy. I just saw her float by, a tree went through her head. And now your children will be sold. Child slavery."

Before one airing of the song, one DJ allegedly said, "I'm going to start shooting Asians." Emmis later fired him and the producer of the song. DJ Miss Jones, chief of the morning crew that aired the song, kept her job after she and the show were suspended. Emmis also donated $1 million to tsunami relief efforts.

But the controversy didn't end. On Feb. 28, rapper 50 Cent played out his "beef" against fellow rapper The Game during an interview on Hot 97. That led to a shootout between followers of the two rappers, injuring one.

A week later, Fox News show "Hannity & Colmes" had Rick Cummings, Emmis' president of radio operations, on air to explain a Hot 97 contest called "Smackfest." It features adult women trading slaps to win a cash prize.

On March 4, about 200 people rallied in New York's Union Square, declaring that Hot 97 promotes a racist, violent culture.

In the past, said rally organizer Candice Custodio, Hot 97 DJs have mocked the plane crash that killed singer Aaliyah, once called rap impresario Russell Simmons by a racially derogatory term, and frequently used a certain racial epithet. Hot 97 DJs also play up "beefs" between rappers, said Custodio, also known as DJ Kuttin Kandi. She said that led to the 2001 shooting outside Hot 97's offices between the entourages of Lil' Kim and another rap group.

"There's not a balance of good conscience hip-hop there," Custodio said. Not everyone wants to hear violent language and women referred to by sexually derogatory terms, she said.

Tough balancing act

Cummings and Smulyan, however, say Emmis and Hot 97 try hard to balance responsibility with reality.

"The younger end of the audience is very much interested in these street records," Cummings said. If Hot 97 doesn't play them, "we run the potential at some point of being viewed by the audience as a sellout."

While a certain racial epithet had crept back into on-air banter, he said, Emmis now has reined it in. Hot 97 staff edits the word and other offensive items out of songs. They also try to limit the play frequency of "beef" albums. And Eminem's "Hail Mary 2003" never was aired at all.

There was no excuse for "The Tsunami Song," Cummings and Smulyan said, but the furor over "Smackfest" and the shooting is a case of political opportunism and critics piling on.

If listeners of Emmis' Indianapolis stations find the events at Hot 97 shocking, that's because Emmis doesn't own a hip-hop station here.

"That's the hip-hop culture," Smulyan said. "Do I condone some of the lyrics in hip-hop music? No. No more than I do Rush Limbaugh's show," which airs on Emmis-owned WIBC-AM in Indianapolis. "We reflect contemporary culture."

The uproar surrounding Hot 97 has not been lost on analysts and investors who follow Emmis.

Mike Kupinski, an analyst for A.G. Edwards & Co., said the Hot 97 controversy likely will keep Emmis from exceeding its fourth-quarter revenue forecast, which he says the company was on pace to do. Analysts have lowered their profit estimates by a penny per share in the past two months.

What has weighed on Emmis' stock even more heavily is the threat that new technologies could steal listeners from all radio stations.

Satellite radio companies XM and Sirius have signed up 4.5 million subscribers, and estimates of Internet radio peg its listenership at 4.1 million.

In addition, MP3 players such as Apple Computer's iPod stand to give motorists one more option besides listening to the radio. iPods can even receive one of 3,500 radiolike podcasts by downloading a file from the Internet.

Traditional radio still dwarfs all these media, drawing nearly 290 million weekly listeners.

But in summer 2004, many analysts sharply downgraded radio stocks, saying competition from new technologies would slice radio's traditional annual growth rate of 7 percent to 8 percent in half.

That drove Emmis' stock down from an early 2004 peak of $28.05 to as low as $17.18 in February. It since has rebounded and closed last week at $19.69.

"There are a lot of crosscurrents," said Jim Goss, a media analyst at Barrington Research. "As a result, a rebound in radio ad spending has not been as aggressive as they would have liked."

Indeed, radio advertising budgets grew 3.5 percent in 2004, slower than all other media, according to projections made in December by Universal McCann, a global advertising firm. Internet ad spending, by contrast, grew 25 percent.

The radio industry has fired back. The Radio Advertising Bureau undertook a project to quantify the value of radio marketing. And all major radio firms have contributed more than $28 million worth of airtime to promote radio listening in a campaign created by the National Association of Broadcasters.

Radio station operators are also aggressively pushing high-definition technology. It could improve radio signals to near compact disc quality. Or a station could divide its bandwidth into two or three signals, blunting the threat of Internet and satellite, which can offer hundreds of stations.

Emmis plans to do both, Smulyan said. It has rolled out HD technology at WIBC-AM (1070) in Indianapolis. It plans to have HD at 17 of its 25 stations by the end of 2006.

"It's become very popular to say, 'Radio's dead.' And yet it's a very vibrant media," he said. "The beauty of what we do is it's local, and it's live all the time."

Call Star reporter J.K. Wall at (317) 444-6287.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Misogyny

Beyond Beats and Rhymes: Masculinity in Hip Hop by Suemedha Sood

"When I met you last night babyBefore you opened up your gapI had respect for ya ladyBut now I take it all back"Snoop Doggy Dogg"
From the window to the wallTo the sweat drop down my ballsAll you bitches crawl"Lil Jon and the Eastside Boyz"
Man this hoe you can have her,when I'm done I ain't gon keep herMan, bitches come and go, every nigga pimpin know"50 Cent
Ah, the sweet sound of misogyny -- every time I turn on the radio. Andturning on the TV is even worse. Video after video on channels like BET andMTV accosts us with images of rappers throwing money at half naked women.And mainstream hip hop is more popular than ever. But if sex and violencesell -- particularly when combined -- there's nothing anybody can do aboutit. Or, that's what the record companies want us to believe. Fortunately,they don't have everyone convinced.Young filmmaker Byron Hurt is not just unconvinced, he wants to challengethe system. In his new documentary, Beyond Beats and Rhymes: Masculinity inHip Hop Culture, Byron presents images, samples and interviews that he hopeswill expose and take apart the structures of violence, hyper-aggression, andmisogyny present in much of today's hip hop.Produced by Stanley Nelson, known for such documentaries as Marcus Garvey:Look for Me in the Whirlwind, the 60-minute film will run on PBS later thisyear. Not content with merely this audience, however, Byron is takingmatters into his own hands by showing the film on college campuses acrossthe nation. In speaking to him, it's easy to see why."So much of the ills in our society come from the way we men definemanhood," says Byron, adding, "I want this film to really get men toquestion and to challenge the way we're socialized and conditioned."He became familiarized with the realities of black masculinity when makingthe film I Am a Man: Black Masculinity in America. An anti-sexism activist,Byron has also worked for a program called Mentors in Violence Preventionfor the Marine Corps where he held training, workshops, and lectures forU.S. Marines, fraternity brothers, coaches, activists, and teachers. Byronstresses the need to educate boys and men in the African-American community,in particular, about what it means to be male in our society. Encouragingsuch discussion, he believes, has the possibility to spark important socialchange.In the process of making the film, Byron interviewed a number of malerappers -- from LL Cool J, Wyclef Jean, and Fat Joe to Chuck D, Talib Kweli,and Mos Def. (Although only the last four appear in the final version of thefilm.) He also spoke with a variety of hip-hop scholars and historians, andtried to take on some of the major decision makers in the hip-hop industry.Perhaps most poignant, however, are his interactions with kids. In onescene, Byron captures the voices of several young aspiring rappers spewingout words of hate, violence, and sexism for the camera. When Byronchallenges them, they are un-phased. "That's how you get paid," theyrespond, implying, no one wants to hear anything positive, so why even try?Don't be mistaken. Beyond Beats and Rhymes is not a crusade to change theface of the mainstream music industry. "I'm not naive," says Byron. "I don'tthink my film is going to change the industry. It's an amoral businessculture. They're not concerned with changing society, they're concerned withmaking money. So I focused on how this affects the people who see thisfilm." Byron hopes this practical approach will inspire viewers to opentheir minds and be self-reflective. "It's up to us as consumers to challengesome of the representations of masculinity that we see in American culture,"he says. "We have to start saying, 'I don't buy into this idea that a man issupposed to be violent or sexist or homophobic.'"Film editor Sabrina Gordon worked with Byron on Beyond Beats. She alsoexpresses concern about the limited scope of images and representation incommercial, mainstream hip-hop. "There's a certain disconnect between what'scommercial and the culture as a whole," she says.Beyond Beats and Rhymes also presents its audience with some of the moresocially-conscious and politically-substantive voices that tend toconstitute underground hip hop and rap. As Sabrina sees it, "There's somecontent that's just not about violence or sexism," she says. "It's notpreaching, but it touches on a range of human experiences."In the film, Byron asks why it's nearly impossible to find provocative,meaningful, lyrics in the mainstream. As much as he promotes more consciousartists such as Dead Prez or Coup, Byron finds it problematic that it is sodifficult to gain access to their music. "I think the biggest thing is thatit doesn't have the credibility that the mainstream hip hop has because itdoesn't get the marketing, the promotion, the coverage, and the exposure."Besides being an overall inspiring film, Beyond Beats and Rhymes has a verystrong activist component. Byron wants it to become an important educationaltool; He plans on creating a curriculum to be taught in conjunction with thedocumentary and he is currently hosting screenings at colleges across thenation. Colleges, he says, are important places to show the film --important because "that's one place where young people are engaging incritical thinking. They're there to push their own consciousness and I thinkthat's a really great place for change to begin." Byron also hopes to usethis film in prisons and juvenile detention centers where he thinks manyyoung men have bought into societal views of masculinity.More than anything, Byron and Sabrina want to reach as many people with thisfilm as possible. "PBS has a certain demographic, but I also want to reachthe people I'm making the film for, and that's young people inside thehip-hop generation, particularly young males," says Byron. This is why he isencouraging as many young people as possible to tune in to PBS later thisyear when Beyond Beats and Rhymes premiers, in an effort to "attract a largehip-hop audience to PBS."Beyond Beats and Rhymes can have a huge impact on a wide variety ofAmericans if we let it. The only way to do that is to draw as much attentionto the film as possible, Byron points out. He adds, "I want people to knowthat there is someone doing this kind of work -- an anti-sexist activisttrying to transform people's minds.

"To help spread the word, check out www.bhurt.com or visit The IndependentTelevision Service and The National Black Programming Consortium to sendfeedback about the project or to learn about similar endeavors in televisionand film.==========Suemeda Sood, 20, is a student at the University of Virginia. This pieceoriginally appeared on WireTap.

Friday, March 25, 2005

HOT SMACKFEST KO'd NY POST

HOT 97'S VICIOUS 'SMACKFEST' KO'D By FREDRIC U. DICKER State Editor

BLOOD SPORT: A woman gets hard splaps to the face in the cruel "Smackfest" promotion, which the state Athletic Commission says is an illegal boxing match. ';

BLOOD SPORT: A woman gets hard splaps to the face in the cruel "Smackfest" promotion, which the state Athletic Commission says is an illegal boxing match.
State Editor " name=byline> State officials yesterday ordered Hot 97 to stop its controversial Smackfest, in which women wallop each other in the face. The girl-on-girl contests — which sometimes draw blood — amount to an illegal boxing match that could lead WQHT-FM officials to be charged with a crime, the state Athletic Commission said. What's more, the commission warned station general manager Barry May — as well as Jeffrey Smulyan, chairman of parent company Emmis Communications — that WQHT faces a $10,000 civil fine if it continues. State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is also probing Smackfest. "There is a state law designed to protect people from potentially dangerous and demeaning competitions, [and] we are trying to determine whether Hot 97 is complying with that law," said Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp. The zapping of Smackfest comes after The Post reported on Sunday that a half-dozen City Council members asked Spitzer to rule the bouts out of bounds under the state law barring unlicensed fights. Athletic Commission Executive Deputy Commissioner Hugo Spindola, in a letter sent to May and Smulyan yesterday, ordered the station to "immediately cancel any and all present and/or future 'Smackdown' [sic] events which may be scheduled to take place." In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Post, Spindola warned the executives that they appeared to be conducting an "illegal boxing event," which, under New York law, is a criminal misdemeanor. Hot 97, which bills itself as the "Official No. 1 station for hip-hop and R&B," sparked outrage last month by running contests in which women smack each other in their faces in order to compete for a grand prize of $5,000. Digitally streamed video of the bloody Smackfests are currently being promoted on Hot 97's Web site, although the events themselves have at least temporarily been stopped due to what the station previously described as "staff shortages." During one of the matches, Hot 97 DJ Ebro Darden intervened to stop the smacking, saying, "We got mouth blood." But he brought the women back moments later for more smacking. Smulyan called Spitzer's probe "pure political opportunism," adding, "We find it hypocritical that the attorney general is going after Hot 97" and not other radio and TV stations. "The Smackfest promotion has already been shut down, and we do not believe it violated the law in any way. In fact, hundreds of consenting adults signed up," he said. " name=text>

March 25, 2005 -- ALBANY — "Smackfest" just got smacked down.
State officials yesterday ordered Hot 97 to stop its controversial Smackfest, in which women wallop each other in the face.
The girl-on-girl contests — which sometimes draw blood — amount to an illegal boxing match that could lead WQHT-FM officials to be charged with a crime, the state Athletic Commission said.
What's more, the commission warned station general manager Barry May — as well as Jeffrey Smulyan, chairman of parent company Emmis Communications — that WQHT faces a $10,000 civil fine if it continues.
State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is also probing Smackfest.
"There is a state law designed to protect people from potentially dangerous and demeaning competitions, [and] we are trying to determine whether Hot 97 is complying with that law," said Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp.
The zapping of Smackfest comes after The Post reported on Sunday that a half-dozen City Council members asked Spitzer to rule the bouts out of bounds under the state law barring unlicensed fights.

Athletic Commission Executive Deputy Commissioner Hugo Spindola, in a letter sent to May and Smulyan yesterday, ordered the station to "immediately cancel any and all present and/or future 'Smackdown' [sic] events which may be scheduled to take place."
In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Post, Spindola warned the executives that they appeared to be conducting an "illegal boxing event," which, under New York law, is a criminal misdemeanor.
Hot 97, which bills itself as the "Official No. 1 station for hip-hop and R&B," sparked outrage last month by running contests in which women smack each other in their faces in order to compete for a grand prize of $5,000.
Digitally streamed video of the bloody Smackfests are currently being promoted on Hot 97's Web site, although the events themselves have at least temporarily been stopped due to what the station previously described as "staff shortages."
During one of the matches, Hot 97 DJ Ebro Darden intervened to stop the smacking, saying, "We got mouth blood." But he brought the women back moments later for more smacking.
Smulyan called Spitzer's probe "pure political opportunism," adding, "We find it hypocritical that the attorney general is going after Hot 97" and not other radio and TV stations.
"The Smackfest promotion has already been shut down, and we do not believe it violated the law in any way. In fact, hundreds of consenting adults signed up," he said.

Essence "Take Back the Music" NY Town Hall (AP)

Solutions?

Hip-hop debate focuses on images of womenby IMANI DAWSONAssociated PressNEW YORK

A volatile topic inspired heated debate as several hundred peoplegathered to discuss the impact of misogynistic rap on black women.Rapper Remy Ma, underground emcee Jean Grae, author and radio personalityKaren Hunter, Essence magazine health editor Akiba Solomon and DJ BeverlyBond were featured on the panel, titled "Images of Women in Hip Hop," onTuesday night at the Fashion Institute of Technology.More than 300 people filled the auditorium to capacity, spilling onto thestage and into the aisles. Attendees listened raptly as panelists debatedhip-hop's treatment of women before vociferously voicing their own deeplyheld beliefs.The talk began with moderator Thabiti Boone, co-founder of the Hip HopPolitical convention, condemning rapper Nelly's infamous "Tip Drill" video,which featured the artist swiping a credit card through a stripper'sbuttocks. Though nearly everyone agreed that the salacious video crossed alltasteful boundaries and blatantly disrespected women, the dialogue soonbecame chaotic.Heated bickering between the panelists and the audience ensued, much todismay of moderator Boone. On multiple occasions he was forced to quellcatcalls, jeers or claps as the conversation addressed topics includingparental responsibility versus community involvement in child rearing, theeffect of rap videos on impressionable adolescents and even hip-hop'sdesignation as a culture.Remy, the lone female member of Fat Joe's Terror Squad clique, has many oralsex references in her raps on such hits as "Lean Back" and "Take me Home."During one exchange she declared, "I'm not here to raise anybody'schildren." Audience member and teacher Radha Blank retorted, "If you don'tbelieve hip-hop is affecting young people, join me in the schools wherejunior high school girls are (performing fellatio) in the hallways."Panelists occasionally interrupted or argued with each other. And theaudience was equally divided - younger people repeatedly claimed thathip-hop's depiction of women accurately reflects the behavior of somefemales, while older folks insisted that rap's content negatively affectsthe behavior of both young men and women.The program ran almost a half-hour long as panelists and audience membersbattled to articulate their opinions. It ended abruptly, with littlesolution-oriented discourse, leaving some frustrated and unsure about nextsteps."I really didn't think much was accomplished," complained Tanysha Chaffin, ayouth specialist and caseworker. "It was an attack on hip-hop that didn'tsolve anything."Others remained optimistic. "The campaign's goal is to open and further adialogue on a sometimes unpopular topic," said panelist Solomon. "Weobserved tonight that this is an issue the community feels passionateabout."The panel was sponsored by Essence magazine and the Center forCommunication, a nonpartisan forum designed to familiarize college studentswith the business of media. Inspired by the 2004 Spelman College protest ofthe "Tip Drill" video, Essence launched a yearlong "Take Back the Music"campaign in January, featuring articles in the magazine and town hallmeetings around the country tackling stereotypes about black women perpetuated by hip hop.

FCC/HOT97 Daily News

Rap session here?BY ERROL LOUISDAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERFriday, March 25th, 2005WASHINGTON - Things may be getting hotter for Hot 97.The Federal Communications Commission may hold special hearings in New York to investigate whether Hot 97 and other radio stations are fueling violence by broadcasting threat-filled lyrics and encouraging clashes between rival groups of rappers, the Rev. Al Sharpton said yesterday."This is a misuse of the public airwaves," Sharpton said, shortly after he met with FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein."They ought to sanction radio stations that encourage a pattern, including employees who engage in on-the-air inciting of violence," Sharpton said.The civil rights activist predicted the FCC would hold hearings in the city, possibly as soon as this summer.An FCC spokesman confirmed yesterday's meetings but declined comment on what was discussed. A public airing of complaints could put Hot 97 on the defensive - especially because the hip-hop station, like all radio stations, must apply to the FCC for renewal of its broadcast license next year in order to stay on the air.The FCC has spent the past year cracking down on radio and television stations that broadcast raunchy lyrics and images, leveling multimillion-dollar fines against stations that violate decency rules.Hot 97 has been the target of fierce criticism following a recent shootout in front of the station between the entourages of rappers 50 Cent and The Game, whose on-air attacks escalated into gunplay that left a man hospitalized. A similar shooting in 2001 led to stiff prison terms for two gun-toting security guards who arrived at the station with rapper Lil' Kim and began firing at the entourage of another rapper, Nas.Lil' Kim, whose real name is Kimberly Jones, was convicted last week of lying about the incident to a federal grand jury and faces up to 20 years in prison.Critics say Hot 97 encourages clashes by scheduling dueling groups close together and allowing rappers to spew threats and insults over the air. Sharpton has been calling for a 90-day boycott of stations linked to violence.Barry Mayo, the president of Hot 97, had no comment yesterday.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

CLEAR CHANNEL GUILTY?

Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Clear Channel Entertainment Ordered To Pay $90 Million

The company was cleared of antitrust allegations, but a Chicago judge directed Clear Channel to pay $73 million in punitive damages and $17 million in lost profits to rival event promoter Jam Productions after a jury ruled that Clear Channel Entertainment intentionally interfered with Jam's business dealings.
According to the Associated Press, plaintiff's lawyers alleged during the six-week trial that, after Jam signed a 90-day exclusive negotiating agreement with the American Motorcycle Association to promote motorcycle racing events, Clear Channel Entertainment and the AMA illegally negotiated a separate deal. Then, they said, CCE threatened local stadium operators with pulling other Clear Channel events from their venues if they worked with Jam on the AMA deal. Jam lawyers presented e-mails from Clear Channel executives discussing the AMA bid, including one suggesting DJs at two Clear Channel radio stations should badmouth both the AMA and Jam on the air.
"This is an important case in that this jury found that Clear Channel's conduct here was so grossly inappropriate that they awarded punitive damages," Jam attorney Jeffrey Singer said.
However, while Clear Channel Chief Legal Officer Andy Levin says his company will "vigorously appeal" the decision, he is pleased that Clear Channel was cleared of the antitrust charges. "This jury's decision that Clear Channel did not violate antitrust laws sends a powerful signal to those who seek to wrongfully accuse us in the future," he said.
Levin added, "We are disappointed that the jury agreed with Jam Sports' other claim and failed to see this case for what it actually was — a disgruntled competitor that could not succeed in the marketplace and so took its case to a courtroom."

THE WILMINGTON JOURNAL (SMACKFEST)

CASH IN THE APPLE, SHARPTON CALLS FOR 90-DAY BAN ON VIOLENT MUSIC, WEEK OF MARCH 10-16, 2005by CASH MICHAELSThe Wilmington Journal

COS HAS BEEN SUED - As promised, comedian Bill Cosby has been sued in that alleged fondling case that the Philadelphia District Attorney refused to prosecute. From the young woman’s lawsuit, Cos comes off as a dirty old man (he’s 67).Don’t know what the truth is, but we can only hope for the truth.WRETCHED “SMACKFEST” - I think I’ve seen it all now, and I don’t like any of it.In fact, I’m thoroughly disgusted.Monday night I was flipping by FOX News Channel to see what dumb liberal got suckered to show up on “Hannity & Combs” with conservative meat eater Sean Hannity and progressive wimp Alan Combs.This night they had some black guy on talking about being fired from a white-owned black-formatted radio station because he protested a song that glorified men beating women.So far, I have no problem with the brotha. Too much of that crap on the air, so when someone from the inside stands up and speaks out, I’m all for it.But then the brotha starts talking about how much these white-owned hip-hop rap stations disrespect the African-American community.That I knew.Or at least I thought I knew, until he started talking about something called “Smackfest” promoted by New York’s Hot 97FM.Before he could finish, FOX ran some videotape of what brothaman was talking about.I honestly could not believe the following.Two young black women, standing, facing each other close over a table. A black man, apparently one of the station’s disc jockeys, counting of something to prompt them.And then, when he says “Go” or something, the girl on the left hauls off and slaps the girl on the right.Hard, I mean real hard.Then the girl on the right gets her turn, and she hauls off and smacks the African out of the sista on the left.You guessed it - hard, real hard.And thus crap continues until someone draws blood or is clearly injured.A radio station in what’s supposed to be a civilized city in a civilized country is sponsoring this.I, I could not believe my eyes. So I went on the net to get more info on this travesty.There I found it, an article by the New York Post (owned by the same folks who own FOX News), titled, “DJ in Hot 97 Battle.”Apparently the brotha I saw on Hannity & Colmes was named Paul Porter and he worked for KISS-FM, which is a sister station to Hot 97.The Post puts meat on the bone.Porter was fired because he complained that the song “Party and Bulls (you know what)” by rapper Rah Digger included the lyric, “Beat that bi—- with a bat.”Porter is also a volunteer teacher at a school in Queens. One of his students asked him why the station played that kind of sick, demented music.When he challenged management on the Rah Digger song, he was reportedly told, “Make up your mind: Do you want to stand up for kids or the company?”Homeboy station manager should be glad that wasn’t me he made that stupid remark to. I would have made getting him fired my life’s work, among other things.But then we get to “Smackfest.”According to the Post story, “Although the announcer’s complaint led to a new zero-tolerance policy for on-air profanity, Hot 97 just five months later launched a violent on-air contest called “Smackfest.” That’s where young women compete for a $500 prize by striking one another in the face, not only to try and produce the loudest slap but do the most physical damage — including drawing blood. “Unbelievable.We have hit a new low, my people, in actually allowing any radio station in our community to promote such a wretched, debased spectacle of black women slapping each other bloody for money and sport.I thought that madness they did on the sure-has-faded Jerry Springer Show was bad, but this is beyond that.I write about this at length because that’s how disgusted I was when I saw and read about this mess.And it is no surprise that Hot 97FM is the same New York radio station that got into hot water over that stupid joked up “Tsunami Relief Song” that made fun mothers and children being killed by the massive waves in Indonesia and Africa two months ago.That was beyond heartless.But this “Smackfest” stuff is madness.So why should you care anything about this?Because if Hot 97 gets away with it, you’ll soon be getting it on the black hip-hop station in your town.Bad enough most of the gangsta rap music is so full of violence and disrespect for women that Rev. Al Sharpton is calling on the FCC and radio stations across America to ban violent songs for 90 days.The stations could just blame the record industry.But now the stations themselves are sponsoring barbaric displays and passing them off as entertaining contests.In OUR community.I hope the people of New York don’t fall for that “freedom of speech” junk.Bringing that up in light of this is an insult because it suggests there is no equal requisite of responsibility and common sense.Those are the values, along with GOD and family, that have gotten us this far as a people.Allowing degenerate stuff like “Smackfest” only further drags us and our children down.That is something we cannot allow.

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Emmis Execs in Smackfest trouble? NY POST

POLS WANT TO SMACK HOT 97By PHILIP RECCHIA

Hot 97 may be in hot water again — this time for running a contest in which women smack each other in the face to win big bucks.Six City Council members have asked state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to throw the book at the controversial hip-hop station, WQHT/97.1 FM for airing "Smackfest," which they say violates a state law prohibiting unlicensed fights.Launched last year, the show featured women striking one another in the face to compete for a grand prize of $5,000.The pols say such violence is illegal under a law that bans combative events other than boxing, sparring, wrestling and martial arts.Although "Smackfest" was canceled last month due to short staffing, videos of the contest remain active on Hot 97's Web site.In one match, a female contestant dubbed "Kemeisha" of Queens took on "Ray Ray" of Brooklyn.Halfway through the event, Hot 97 DJ Ebro Darden stopped the brutalities, saying, "We got mouth blood" — only to bring the women back moments later for more beatings.The council members say Spitzer should prosecute Jeff Smulyan, CEO of Hot 97's parent company, Emmis Communications, and other Emmis execs "with the appropriate criminal and civil charges for such violations."The complaining council members are John Liu, Charles Barron, Letitia James, Diana Reyna, Robert Jackson and Leroy Comrie.Spitzer's office declined to comment.But Emmis spokesman Alex Dudley said: "There is nothing illegall.

GIZOOGLE

washingtonpost.com
Gizoogle.com, the Wizard of Izzle
Web Site Parody Puts Ya Search Resultizzle Into Gangsta-Speak. Kizzy!

By Stephen A. Crockett Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 10, 2005; Page C01

There are words and phrases that manipulate their way into the collective language of coolness -- making them so uncool.

"You da man!" is one such phrase. A few years ago, it had 50-year-old guys in office slacks pointing finger guns.

And who can forget "Wassup?!"

After this story, we can add all things "izzle."

Fo shizzle. Fo realizzle.

Because now, for the Internet gangsta inside us all, there is Gizoogle.

Reader be warned: This isn't a family-friendly Web site.

Gizoogle is the illegitimate, thugged-out cousin of Google that translates its search results into Snoop Dogg slang, or izzle-speak, a sort of nuevo pig Latin. Enter "Vice President Dick Cheney" in the search field and it turns up "Vizzy President Dizzle Cheney." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is "Condoleezza Rizzle." It then supplies the same information on the subjects as Google does -- except it's izzle-filled and obscenity laden.

We can thank MTV for this.

MTV is the hub for izzle-isms and Snoop Dogg's sketch comedy show, "Doggy Fizzle Televizzle." Thus, giz-illions of izzles reach places like York, Pa., and people like John Beatty, who created Gizoogle.

"I started the site a few weeks ago," says Beatty, a 28-year-old Web designer. "I was talking to my buddy on AOL Instant Messenger and he always talks in that izzle-speak, and I do it to my wife all the time and she hates it. I was thinking that it might be cool if there was a site that searched and all of the answers came up in that format."

It started as a joke and a homage to Snoop Dogg for bringing izzle-speak back to the hip lexicon. But now the Web site is clocking 60,000 hits a day, according to Beatty. In February, the site landed at No. 4 on Entertainment Weekly's "Must List." Only U2's "All Because of You" video, Patricia Arquette in "Medium" and the movie "Aliens of the Deep" were rated cooler.

The roots of izzle-speak are fuzzizzle. But it might trace back to 1981 and a Philly songwriter named Frankie Smith, who released "Double Dutch Bus," a version of the children's jump rope game. Smith's original song started out as an expletive-laced freestyle diss aimed at SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) for turning him down for a job as a bus driver. When Smith played the song for studio engineers, they told him to clean it up. He did, and even brought in neighborhood kids to the studio to add pig Latin. At the end of the song, he calls out his own version of the "Name Game" -- "Bilzarbra, Mitzery, Milzetty . . ." And he and the children can be heard changing "Double Dutch" to "Dilzzouble Dizzutch." The song stayed at the top of the Billboard charts for almost six weeks and sold more than 4 million copies.

Throughout the years, other hip-hop artists would add -izzle suffixes or "iz" infixes to their lyrics. Retired-yet-still-recording rapper Jay-Z spouted in Snoop Dogg's "Drop It Like It's Hot (Remix)": "Got haters on my jizzock / plus the frickin cizzops / all of whom want to hit me with shizzots til I drizzop." Then Snoop D-O-Double Gizzle, as he sometimes calls himself, added fuelizzle to the fizire with "Doggy Fizzle Televizzle," which began airing in 2003 with characters such as schoolteacher Mr. Dizzle.

Now we have Gizoogle.

In geek-speak, here is how the site works: Using a programming language called PHP, the program counts the syllables and vowels and adds "izzle" whenever possible and also throws in some of Snoop's lyrics. As a homage to Snoop's show, "I made it so that television pops up as televizzle every time," says Beatty, whose full-time job is running Originalicons.com, a Web site that provides instant-messaging buddy icons.

The Gizoogle site also offers a translator called a "textilizer." If you input the words to something, say, sweet and innocent, such as the "Barney" theme song, and hit enter you get something like: I love you / you love me / we're one stoked family / witta bootylicious big hug and a kiss fizzle from me ta you / won't you say you love me, too?

The Gizoogle site mirrors Google's multicolored lettering, but the O's in Gizoogle are filled with chromed-out wheel rims.

"When I first put the site up, I had these crappy gold spoke rims on there and then my friend was like, you have got to get some spinners on there," Beatty says.

Google officials aren't commenting, but this isn't the first time Google has had to deal with folks biting its style. In 2004, lawyers for Google challenged Booble, a porn search engine. Booble changed its look and is still up and running.

And Beatty isn't the only one out there izzilating. The master himself, Snoop Dogg, has his own version on his Web site, SnoopDogg.com. "After I put the site up, someone called me and told about Snoop's thing," Beatty says.

Gizoogle "is a parody site," he says. " . . . I think that the people at Google have a pretty good sense of humor. It is all in good fun. . . . I look at this like a science project. I am just trying to see how far I can take it."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Who owes the Hip Hop Community?

Do Non-Blacks in Hip Hop Owe the Black Community? The Non-White Man’s Burden:
Do non-blacks in hiphop owe the Black community anything?
By: Hadji Williams

Like hiphop, I came from the hood. What two or three non-blacks that lived
in our community only lived there because they couldn’t afford to be
anywhere else—and they were quick to remind you of that every chance they
got. And with the exception of a black-owned car wash/restaurant all the
businesses—stores, gas stations, cleaners, fast food, car shops, currency
exchanges, etc. were all owned by Middle Easterners, Asians, or Whites.
(Even the black storefront churches were in spaces rented to us by
outsiders.) Day in and day out, they overcharged us, condescended to us,
underserved us, underrepresented us, disrespected us and profited off of us.
Then at the end of the day, when they were done with us they went back to
wherever they called home, back to the people they really loved and
respected and saw as equals.

Today, not much has changed.

In 2005, hiphop remains a global juggernaut generating an estimated $11
billion a year from music, movies, clothing, cross-marketing and
merchandising revenues, etc. And by now, it’s common knowledge that 80% of
Black music (i.e. Rap, R&B, Soul, Blues, Jazz, House, Gospel) is consumed by
Whites and Non-Blacks domestically and globally. It’s also common knowledge
that despite the presence of big names like Russell Simmons, Cash Money,
Diddy, Hov, LA Reid (CEO IDJ), Kedar Massenburg (President of Motown), et
al, virtually 100% the major and mid-major record labels (Interscope, Sony
BMG, Atlantic, Virgin, EMI, etc.) along with 100% of the distributors (Koch,
Studio, Polygram, etc.) and major retail outlets are white-owned. And of
course, 100% of the video channels, over 98% of the radio stations (sans
Cathy Hughes’ Radio One) and over 95% of the significant print outlets
(Village Voice, SPIN, RollingStone, Details, URB, etc.) are white-owned.
Meanwhile, the black artists, historians, innovators and community as a
whole that birthed this and other artforms remains marginalized and at the
mercy of outsiders.

Is it right that everyone outside our community continues to control and
profit off of what we do and what we are more than us, all while doing
nothing to help us overcome the negative conditions that they helped create
and perpetuate? Is it right that hundreds of millions of whites and
non-blacks co-opt whatever comes out of black communities and give nothing
back besides condescending lip-service every February? Can you consume,
commoditize and profit off of a people’s culture as we’ve done with black
folks for generations and have no responsibility to that community at all?

Consider Hot 97’s Tsunami Song fiasco, in which America’s Asian and
non-black communities and Hot 97’s corporate sponsors banded together to
bring down a black morning show for insulting Tsunami victims and Asians.
Yet these same individuals and entities who’ve co-opted and profited off of
hiphop and black culture for years, including Minya Oh aka Miss Info, rapper
Jin, along with others in the various Asian, White, and non-black
communities at large have openly cosigned, ignored, or excused similar
antics when the targets were black men and women. (Think: Hot 97’s
“Slapfest,” in which young black women were brought in to slap each other as
hard as possible with the winner getting $500, the countless degrading slurs
and jokes made at the expense of black folks by on-air talents such as Wendy
Williams, and those at other stations such as Star and BucWild, Howard
Stern, Opie & Anthony, etc.)

Furthermore, when Eminem’s “black women are bitches/niggers” song was
unearthed in 2004, white and non-black hiphoppers and black culture
consumers either ignored the black community’s outrage or defended Em
outright. (Russell Simmons, was among his most vocal defenders, as I
recall.) No. And when Justin ripped Janet’s top off during the ‘04 Super
Bowl then pulled his “I’m just an innocent white boy who got suckered by the
mean black lady” act, the white and non-black communities defended and
forgave him. And as BET (lead by its UNCUT show) along with MTV and MTV2
continue to take the misogyny and degradation of black women to new lows in
videos and new heights in ratings and profitability the white and non-black
communities, most of who watch and support this stuff in disproportionately
high numbers, continue to remain sheepishly quiet.

Contrast this reaction with Eminem’s other music, which draws consistent
fire from GLAAD, NOW and others mainstreamers boycotted due to the
popularity of his lyrics among white teens. Consider the scrutiny and
criticism that rap artists have come under ever since hiphop became popular
among whites youth. There’s the underlying notion that as long as black
artists degrade black women and black men, they’ll be left alone to “do what
niggers do,” but the moment they begin influencing white teens—or god
forbid—disrespect a white female, out come the feminists and culture
critics.

It should also be noted that for all the hell folks (myself included) give
Stanley Crouch, Dionne Warwick, C. Delores Tucker for their
slightly-misguided anti-rap crusades, at least they stand up to the music
industry forces that profit off the portrayal of black men as pimps,
niggers, and thugs and black women as little more than bitches, strippers,
babymammas, etc. And save for Essence Magazine, Chuck D., Davey D., and a
few other people of color, everyone else, especially those in non-black
communities who profit most off this mental poison have stood silent and
supportive. Speaking of which…

And as much as I despise Bill O’Reilly and the conservative biased media
cabal that is FoxNews Channel, I’m hard-pressed to name a single non-black
person of any stature other than O’Reilly who even pretends to question the
stereotypical and mysognistic crap most of these white-run record labels
churn out at the expense of many equally deserving black artists whose music
is about uplifting black folks and making quality music. But then again, why
should they? Why should white America and non-black America make a big deal
about the mental poison the industry churns out? After all, it’s not their
women or children being put out there in such negative light.

Today 80% of America’s prison system is made up of black and brown men and
women including over 1 million black men locked down right now; yet even
according to Department of Justice studies, whites are more likely to commit
crimes such as drug use and trafficking, rape, murder, etc. Yet when it
comes to fighting these injustices, our 80% white and non-black consumer
base that claims to love black folks so much is consistently nowhere to be
found. When missing black girls and boys are consistently ignored to focus
on missing white girls, white men and white women, all those
too-hip-for-the-suburbs white and non-black females who brag about their
love of Alicia Keys, Mary J. Blige, Jill Scott, etc. are deafeningly silent.
(Once again, it’s called the “’Amber’ Alert” and “’Megan’s’ Law” for a
reason.) As more and more inner-city schools continue to be closed,
under-funded and mismanaged at the expense of black and brown youth, all the
white kids who love black music and slang so much remain quiet. (After all,
their schools are doing just fine.) And when our nation’s leaders ignore
genocide, AIDS epidemics, catastrophic natural disasters and geopolitical
unrest in Haiti, the Congo, El Salvador, the Sudan and other places and
nations of color in the name of building alliances with and supporting
Anglo-western nations, black culture’s 80% white culture vultures cosign
that hypocrisy, too. When mainstreamers like Ken Burns, VH-1, PBS, Clint
Eastwood, Martin Scorsese and others shackle black history and events by
their narrow-minded and often-biased perspectives, that 80% white and
non-black consumer base embraces their vision while simultaneously ignoring
and marginalizing voices of Black Documentarians and those who would expose
the truth. And when Hollywood, Madison Ave. and Corporate America at large
continues to enforce standards of beauty, humor, style, femininity that
elevate whites above all others or cater to white sensibilities at the
expense of people of color, hiphop and black culture’s 80% white/non-black
culture vultures do nothing to challenge this. But why should they? They’re
just following the traditions of their parents, grandparents and ancestors,
all whom did the same thing in generations past.

America has always believed that no matter what creation is borne of black
folks’ souls the highest validation blacks can ever achieve is to have it
defined, co-opted and commoditized by whites and non-blacks. Before Benny
Goodman and the Dorsey Brothers and Bing Crosby, the Andrew Sisters, etc.
bogarded their way into Jazz and made it “America’s classical music,” Jazz
was widely degraded as worthless “race music.” Rock & Roll and Rhythm and
Blues had little value or acceptance until Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, The
Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, Eric Clapton, Stevie
Ray Vaughn and others cosigned, co-opted and consumed ‘em. Even Hiphop was
marginalized as non-music and “niggers talking” until Rick Rubin, the
Beastie Boys, Vanilla Ice, MTV, 3rd Bass (and of course, Em) showed up and
made it “viable”. (In fact, older heads can still remember most white
Americans including Jay Leno and Joan Rivers regularly noting, “You can’t
spell ‘crap’ without ‘r-a-p’.”) And keep in mind, while all of this cultural
co-option was going on Blacks were still suffering thru lynchings, Jim Crow,
redlining, segregation and institutionalized racism and injustice in every
aspect of society.

But maybe this is how it’s supposed to be. After all, once a culture or
artform becomes a product, is anyone obligated to do anything more than
define it and consume it as they see fit? Isn’t that the purpose of a
product? People are not product. Heritage and culture is not product. You
don’t connect with product. You don’t empathize with product. You don’t
respect product. You consume product and throw it away once you’re done with
it. And maybe all we’re doing with hiphop and black culture is just being
good consumers. And at the end of the day haven’t black people always been
America’s favorite cultural product anyway?

An 11-year marketing and advertising veteran, Hadji Williams is author of
KNOCK THE HUSTLE: How to save Your Job and Your Life from Corporate America.
(www.knockthehustle.com, coming April 2005.) Email him at:
author@knockthehustle.com // www.knockthehustlechronicles.blogspot.com)

Saturday, March 19, 2005

NY Times HOT97

An Arbiter of Hip-Hop Finds Itself as the TargetBy LOLA OGUNNAIKE and JEFF LEEDS Published: March 16, 2005
ate last week the rapper Jadakiss had a personal message for his rival 50 Cent: "You should just sell clothes and sneakers cause out of your whole camp your flow's the weakest." He chose not to relay the message by fax or two-way pager, nor did he pick up the phone. Instead, Jadakiss turned to an outlet that has become an increasingly popular avenue for communication and conflict within the world of hip-hop: the radio station Hot 97.
Advertisement
He could not have chosen a bigger megaphone. Hot 97, which is owned by the Indianapolis-based Emmis Communications Corporation, is the No. 2 station among listeners in New York City and has been No. 1 in the city's 18-34 demographic for nearly a decade. It earns an estimated $40 million annually in revenue, putting it in the top five of Emmis's 25 radio stations. But in recent months the station has been buried in bad publicity. Critics contend that Hot 97 (WQHT-FM) has tilted from credible arbiter of rap trends to ratings-hungry promoter of violence and racism.
Two weeks ago, gunfire erupted in front of Hot 97's Greenwich Village offices, shortly after 50 Cent announced on the air that he was booting his protégé, the Game, from his G-Unit clique. The incident, coincidentally, occurred on the first day of the rapper Lil' Kim's perjury trial, stemming from her account of a 2001 shoot-out in front of Hot 97. All of this follows the monthlong battering Hot 97 has endured for airing a song mocking victims of the tsunami tragedy.
The effect has pointed up, at the very least, how commerce on the cutting edge of hip-hop culture can go awry. And the recent events may impose another real-world price on the station: the landlord of the building that houses Hot 97 has threatened to oust the station, citing a track record of shootings, fights and "severe verbal abuse of security and building management personnel."
Emmis executives say they are simply trying to maintain their balance.
"We don't want to do anything that provokes or encourages or escalates any kind of violent behavior between camps," said Rick Cummings, president of Emmis's radio division. "By the same token, I can't have the radio station being viewed as a sellout or less than genuine by the younger part of the audience."
The stakes are high. While considered a kingpin of rap radio, the station is facing increased competition from upstart Power 105.1 (WWPR-FM), which is owned by the radio giant Clear Channel Communications. Though Hot 97 still has a comfortable lead over Power 105 in the 18-34 demographic - the "money demographic," according to radio analysts - Power 105, for the first time since its inception two years ago, managed to beat Hot 97 in overall ratings. Management may also be worried, industry observers say, because Star and Buc Wild, once wildly popular (and controversial) morning show D.J.'s at Hot 97, are now perched at Power 105.1.
Meanwhile, local activists are calling for an overhaul of the station. Rosa Clemente, a leading organizer of an anti-Hot 97 rally held earlier this month, accused the station of promoting music filled with misogynistic and violent content. "They call themselves the place where hip-hop lives," she said, "but hip-hop does not live there. A culture of greed and disrespect lives at Hot 97." The Rev. Al Sharpton and several state and local lawmakers recently asked Federal Communications Commission to turn its attention to the station. And along with every other major radio broadcaster in the area, Emmis has received a subpoena from Eliot Spitzer, New York's attorney general, for information on its promotional practices.
"We have run into a string of rotten luck here," Mr. Cummings said in an interview, "but if you look at us over the last 17 years, I think the record is pretty stellar."
But Hot 97 is not the only Emmis station that has landed in hot water. Only last summer, Emmis agreed to pay $300,000 to resolve complaints of indecency against a Chicago D.J. In settling the charges with a F.C.C. increasingly intolerant of indecency on the airwaves in the wake of last year's Super Bowl halftime show, Emmis committed itself to a plan to prevent future violations. (Emmis also owns 16 television stations and Los Angeles magazine and Texas Monthly.)

Thursday, March 17, 2005

NY Times HOT97

NY TIMES March 16, 2005
An Arbiter of Hip-Hop Finds Itself as the Target By LOLA OGUNNAIKE and JEFF LEEDS
Late last week the rapper Jadakiss had a personal message for his rival 50 Cent: "You should just sell clothes and sneakers cause out of your whole camp your flow's the weakest." He chose not to relay the message by fax or two-way pager, nor did he pick up the phone. Instead, Jadakiss turned to an outlet that has become an increasingly popular avenue for communication and conflict within the world of hip-hop: the radio station Hot 97.
He could not have chosen a bigger megaphone. Hot 97, which is owned by the Indianapolis-based Emmis Communications Corporation, is the No. 2 station among listeners in New York City and has been No. 1 in the city's 18-34 demographic for nearly a decade. It earns an estimated $40 million annually in revenue, putting it in the top five of Emmis's 25 radio stations. But in recent months the station has been buried in bad publicity. Critics contend that Hot 97 (WQHT-FM) has tilted from credible arbiter of rap trends to ratings-hungry promoter of violence and racism.
Two weeks ago, gunfire erupted in front of Hot 97's Greenwich Village offices, shortly after 50 Cent announced on the air that he was booting his protégé, the Game, from his G-Unit clique. The incident, coincidentally, occurred on the first day of the rapper Lil' Kim's perjury trial, stemming from her account of a 2001 shoot-out in front of Hot 97. All of this follows the monthlong battering Hot 97 has endured for airing a song mocking victims of the tsunami tragedy.
The effect has pointed up, at the very least, how commerce on the cutting edge of hip-hop culture can go awry. And the recent events may impose another real-world price on the station: the landlord of the building that houses Hot 97 has threatened to oust the station, citing a track record of shootings, fights and "severe verbal abuse of security and building management personnel."
Emmis executives say they are simply trying to maintain their balance.
"We don't want to do anything that provokes or encourages or escalates any kind of violent behavior between camps," said Rick Cummings, president of Emmis's radio division. "By the same token, I can't have the radio station being viewed as a sellout or less than genuine by the younger part of the audience."
The stakes are high. While considered a kingpin of rap radio, the station is facing increased competition from upstart Power 105.1 (WWPR-FM), which is owned by the radio giant Clear Channel Communications. Though Hot 97 still has a comfortable lead over Power 105 in the 18-34 demographic - the "money demographic," according to radio analysts - Power 105, for the first time since its inception two years ago, managed to beat Hot 97 in overall ratings. Management may also be worried, industry observers say, because Star and Buc Wild, once wildly popular (and controversial) morning show D.J.'s at Hot 97, are now perched at Power 105.1.
Meanwhile, local activists are calling for an overhaul of the station. Rosa Clemente, a leading organizer of an anti-Hot 97 rally held earlier this month, accused the station of promoting music filled with misogynistic and violent content. "They call themselves the place where hip-hop lives," she said, "but hip-hop does not live there. A culture of greed and disrespect lives at Hot 97." The Rev. Al Sharpton and several state and local lawmakers recently asked Federal Communications Commission to turn its attention to the station. And along with every other major radio broadcaster in the area, Emmis has received a subpoena from Eliot Spitzer, New York's attorney general, for information on its promotional practices.
"We have run into a string of rotten luck here," Mr. Cummings said in an interview, "but if you look at us over the last 17 years, I think the record is pretty stellar."
But Hot 97 is not the only Emmis station that has landed in hot water. Only last summer, Emmis agreed to pay $300,000 to resolve complaints of indecency against a Chicago D.J. In settling the charges with a F.C.C. increasingly intolerant of indecency on the airwaves in the wake of last year's Super Bowl halftime show, Emmis committed itself to a plan to prevent future violations. (Emmis also owns 16 television stations and Los Angeles magazine and Texas Monthly.)
But since its start in 1993, Hot 97 has been the epicenter of hip-hop in New York. Over the years, D.J.'s like Angie Martinez and Funkmaster Flex, who in 2003 pled guity to harrassing a Power 105 D.J. in front of Hot 97's studios, have become celebrities in their own right, their daily shows functioning almost as the office water cooler with listeners gathering around for the latest in rap music, news and scandal. "It's the CNN of hip-hop," said Elliott Wilson, the editor of the hip-hop music magazine XXL. The station has never feared being provocative. Smackfest, a recurring segment, invited contestants to appear at the station and trade actual slaps for a prize. While at Hot 97 in the late 1990's, Wendy Williams, an outsize personality who is now at WBLS (107.5), spent many afternoons gossiping about the sexuality of music artists. And Star, during his tenure at Hot 97, earned his share of detractors, many of whom believed him to be the embodiment of all that was wrong with station. He regularly used racial epithets, and when Aaliyah, the R&B singer, died in an airplane crash, he played the sounds of planes crashing and bloodcurdling screams.His current show at Power 105 is considerably tamer. "I was not only encouraged to be reckless at Hot 97, but management completely turned their back for the sake of ratings," Star said. "I was a hired gun. I was hired to take the show over the top, to push the boundaries."
Jadakiss says he believes that the media at large are partially responsible for perpetuating violence in hip-hop. "I could see if they tried to downplay the beef in their interviews or they were looking for ways to end it, but they keep it going," he said. "And when the guns come out, they're the first ones to start crying about violence in hip-hop. It's crazy."
Emmis executives say that they specifically discourage D.J.'s from fanning flames of discord during interviews. Barry Mayo, who manages Hot 97 and two other Emmis stations in New York, said his D.J.'s have been coached about how to ask the juicy questions listeners want answers to. "But they are trained to ask them in a fashion that is responsible, which means you don't egg them on."
Mr. Cummings added that the station chose not to air Eminem's "Hail Mary 2003," which eviscerates the rapper Ja Rule (Kay Slay, a popular Hot 97 D.J., featured the song on one of his mixtapes). "We opt not to play most 'beef' records," he said. "Occasionally, it may be out of concern but more often than not, it's because they're just not very good."
Rappers themselves seem less conflicted about the value of publicly airing grievances in interviews or beef records. "If I strategize this right, this could be the biggest thing that happened to me," said Jadakiss, one of a handful of rappers disparaged in "Piggy Bank," a recent beef record by 50 Cent. "This could help my current album start selling again and help my future album sell." D.J. Kay Slay, whose predilection for battle songs have earned him the moniker the Drama King, said such records are hits with the Hot 97 audience.
"You have no idea how many thousands of calls I've gotten from people who want to hear 'Piggy Bank,' " he said with a sigh. "What are we supposed to do, especially if the station down the dial is playing it?"

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Hip Hop doesn't live there anymore

Hip-Hop Doesn't Live Here Anymore
by Mark Hatch-Miller
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n February 28, a shootout involving rappers 50 Cent and The Game outside the studios of New York City's WQHT-FM (97.1) became the latest in a plague of controversies afflicting the station, better known as Hot 97. Three days later, activists staged a "Stop Racist Hot 97" rally on the south side of Union Square, directly across from a Virgin Megastore, to protest corporate media's exploitation of hip-hop culture.
If it seems surprising that Hot 97, a popular hip-hop radio station staffed by mostly African-American and Latino DJs, is being accused of racism, then you probably never heard "The Tsunami Song." Asian Media Watch and the Hip-Hop Coalition organized the anti-Hot 97 rally specifically to protest this spoof-song, a parody that repeatedly aired on the station in January. It set tasteless jokes about Asians and Africans drowning and being sold into child slavery to the tune of "We Are the World."
ADVERTISEMENT Though promoted as an antiracist event, the rally lamented the degraded state of the corporate music industry generally. One of the first performances at the demonstration came from Asian-American rapper Cobra. In front of an audience holding signs reading "Hot 97 Divides Our Community," "Stop Hate 97" and "I Am Hip-Hop," Cobra recited lyrics that earnestly expressed his grievances with the state of hip-hop: "With a hot producer/Hitler would still be popular, blinged-out with Medusa [a popular jewelry brand]." In another song, he castigated greedy artists who fail to recognize the boost in visibility they get from bootlegs and online music traders: "Now you mad 'cause your bootleg's on the Ave.?/That's the best promotion team that you've ever had!.../You whiners unnerve me/You're just an old, white exec in a throwback jersey."
The activists who organized the rally are justified in framing their criticisms in anticorporate terms. Hot 97--"where hip-hop lives," according to its slogan--is owned by Emmis Communications, which owns twenty-four other US radio stations, fifteen US television stations, three European radio stations and a publishing company. Emmis's 100 percent Caucasian board of directors makes its decisions in Indianapolis, more than 700 miles away from Hot 97's listeners. While media critics have long recognized that the rise of radio megaconglomerates like Clear Channel and Infinity Radio has led to a decline in the quality and diversity of radio programming, the history of Hot 97 shows that smaller media conglomerates can be just as unresponsive to the needs of the communities they serve.
A recent cover story on Hot 97 in the Village Voice implied that a ratings war with rival station Power 105.1, owned by Clear Channel, instigated much of the station's divisive behavior. However, Hot 97's shortcomings were apparent to some critics even before Power 105.1 existed.
One of the first clues that Hot 97's absentee overseers might be out of touch with their audience came in 1999, only months before Emmis's first public stock offering. On an episode of the station's public affairs show dealing with the acquittal of the four NYPD officers who shot at Amadou Diallo forty-one times, the host interviewed a police official and conspicuously chose not to air criticism of the decision. The phones were never opened up to the outraged listeners who flooded the lines.
Other scandals followed. There was a shootout in front of the station in 2001 and a public backlash against the station later in the year after its morning hosts poked fun at the death of r&b singer Aaliyah in a plane crash. The rivalry with Power 105.1 that began in 2002 made a bad situation even worse. In 2002 a Hot 97 DJ got into a fistfight with a Power 105.1 DJ over a "payola" allegation made on the newer station's airwaves.
Hot 97 retained its popularity and influence throughout these controversies. Until recently, it held the overall No. 2 spot among listeners 12 and older in New York, according to Arbitron, the radio ratings service. Original performances by rap stars on DJ Funkmaster Flex's show are widely circulated by bootleggers and on the Internet. Ads featuring larger-than-life images of stars like Kanye West and Jadakiss posing in front of gritty urban landscapes are plastered throughout the city's subway stations.
The most recent incidents at the station threaten to change all that. "The Tsunami Song" garnered international headlines and an official condemnation in the British Parliament. It drew the attention of activists in the hip-hop community and the ire of Queens Democrat John C. Liu, New York's first Asian-American city councilman. Hot 97's management initially defended the station in a press release, arguing that the station had "a longtime reputation for community involvement and support." They eventually agreed to fire two employees and donate $1 million to tsunami relief, but neither politicians nor activists seemed satisfied.
In front of the crowd rallying against Hot 97 in Union Square, a political hub of the city since the nineteenth century, "old-school" DJ The Original Jazzy Jay talked about the transformative potential of hip-hop: "It ain't all about how much money I can stuff in my pockets, how many rocks I can put in my socks. It's all about educating ourselves, because the biggest tool we have is between our ears. If you use that tool effectively, hip-hop could be something great. It is great, but it could be greater." Grandmaster Caz, another godfather of hip-hop, humorously inverted Hot 97's slogan to show the contempt corporate media management often has for artists, especially those who aren't on top of the Billboard charts: "Hot 97 is not where hip-hop lives. As a matter of fact, hip-hop needs a pass, approval and two-week notice just to visit Hot 97!" He urged those who work for Hot 97 to "wake up and realize that they're being controlled and programmed--'cause they got a director that does that."
The Harlem rapper who goes by the name Immortal Technique was one of the only speakers that afternoon to offer practical advice to hip-hop fans and artists who are uncomfortable with the direction hip-hop has taken under the reigns of CEOs. He advocates economic resistance as a way to break the stranglehold that multi-national corporations have on the music business--"Burn it off the Internet and bump it outside," he shouts on one song--and has sold more than 80,000 copies of his two full-length records on a truly independent label. His third, The Middle Passage, is scheduled for release this summer on Viper Records. If it is anything like his previous albums, one of which included a song alleging continuing CIA involvement in the South American cocaine economy, it is unlikely that any of it will be played on Hot 97.
But can other artists--many of whom rely on the music industry's globalized combination of patronage and high-stakes gambling--make a living without the support of this system? Immortal suggests it is indeed possible for artists to put money in the bank without relying on irresponsible corporations, but he warns that "it depends on [what] your idea of making paper is," poking fun at the greed and conspicuous affluence that became a hip-hop stereotype in the 1990s.
Immortal did not suggest that Hot 97 would ever really clean up its act--and in all likelihood, any changes made at Hot 97 will disappoint the dedicated activists who organized the rally. Instead, he has discovered that he doesn't need Hot 97 any more than it needs him. "I know a lot of people that move their stuff through the Internet now," he says. "Even though the record industry criticizes the Internet for being one of the reasons it's losing money, it's not. The reason they're losing money is 'cause they make garbage music, formula music."
Immortal Technique's success should give modest but tangible hope to critics of all forms of homogenous, corporate-owned media.

Village Voice on Stanley Crouch

Crouching Stanley, Hidden Gangsta-Is this Critic a Thug?

Crouching Stanley, Hidden Gangsta
Why the hanging judge can't keep his hands to himself

by Ta-Nehisi Coates
www.villagevoice.com/news...380,1.html

Stanley Crouch is a gangsta rapper. Throughout his career, Crouch has moved through black nationalism, bohemia, and places we haven't yet developed the vocab to name. But if there's one thing we've gleaned from Crouch's recent assault on novelist and critic Dale Peck, it is this—we have found Crouch's muse, and his name is Suge Knight.

The backstory is simple, and for Crouch routine. On July 12, out for lunch at Tartine in the West Village, Crouch spotted Peck, who'd trashed his book Don't the Moon Look Lonesome a few years back. After greeting Peck with one hand, Crouch smacked him with the other. "What I would actually have preferred to happen," says Crouch, "was that I had the presence of mind to hawk up a huge oyster and spit it in his face."

Crouch claims he recieved several calls thanking him for the act, which wouldn't be a surprise given that Peck made his name by penning extended negative and, often personal, reviews of other fiction writers.

This was not a moment of hot-headed indiscretion. Crouch may use his perch at the Daily News to inveigh against gangsta rap with all deliberate fury and alarm ("Hip Hop's Thugs Hit New Low," "Hip Hop Gets The Bruising It Deserves," or "Morally, Allen Iverson's a Bad Guy"), but his habit of violent exchanges with writers and editors puts him a notch above Snoop on the ne'er-do-well scale. In most cases gangsta rap is just talk—Biggie and Tupac are the exceptions. But while Crouch has yet to peel caps, the gangsta ethos is realer for him than it is for your average gun-talker.

"The thing is that Stanley will get gangsta on you," says Nelson George, who worked with Crouch here at the Voice, in the 1980s. "There is nothing more gangsta than just walking up and pimp-slapping someone. Not even punching them, just slapping them, almost as a sign of disrespect."

It's almost unfair to accuse Crouch of taking a page from, say, Masta Killa—Crouch was smacking critics when hip-hop was still laceless shelltops and battle raps. Along with being one of the great essayists of his generation, Crouch has always been a man who took Ishmael Reed's Writin' Is Fightin' a little too seriously. During his colorful tenure at this paper, Crouch repeatedly threatened editors and menaced fellow writers. By the time Crouch left, he'd sealed his rep as an iconoclastic curmudgeon and a critic without peer. His litany of incidents usually began with debates over some bit of jazz arcana and ultimately ended in fisticuffs.

"Stanley deserves better than his own temper" says jazz writer Peter Watrous, who also worked here with Crouch. "There are two things that happen at the same time—one of them is that Stanley is a utopian. He strongly believes people should behave in certain way. That combines with an inability to control his own temper, and it makes for a bullying streak."

There was the time Crouch was arguing with jazz writer Russ Musto and told him that if he were a foot taller he'd knock his block off. Musto kept arguing, since he knew he wasn't growing any. Crouch went back on his word, and swung at him anyway. After the two men were separated, Crouch calmed down and offered to buy Musto a drink. Musto says they're friends to this day. Then there's what happened to Guy Trebay, whom Crouch stalked through the Voice's old offices threatening to kill him, relenting only after writer Hilton Als intervened. Another time, writer Harry Allen approached Crouch, hoping to exchange some notes on hip-hop. Instead Crouch, evidently in a bad mood, caught Allen's neck in the cobra clutch, prompting the Voice to give Crouch his walking papers.

By then the Hanging Judge had secured his rep as king of the literal literary brawlers—an accolade that ranks right up there with prettiest journalist. Really now, administering beat-downs to pencil-necked critics is about as macho as spousal abuse, croquet—or gangsta rap.

Much like the acts he derides, Crouch has a taste for swinging that is nothing short of a variation on the "I ain't no punk" theme seemingly encoded on the DNA of all black males. "I have a kind of Mailer-esque reaction to the way some people view writers," Crouch once told The New Yorker. "I want them to know that just because I write doesn't mean I can't also fight." Put another way, Crouch wants you know he keeps it gangsta.

"People perceive writers as being soft and not assertive. And there is a legacy of writers, going back to Hemingway, asserting their masculinity in an overt way," says George. "Maybe it gives Stanley personal satisfaction, but I don't think it's necessary. This is something you'd expect from a rapper in The Source's office because they got three mics in a review."

Crouch's street mojo also adds another layer of mystique, particularly for his white fans. His brand of withering attacks against black nationalism and the black left would normally open the assailant to essentialist charges about his "blackness." But to the frustration of his targets, Crouch is the real deal for the Tina Brown set. From his jazz criticism, to his folksy Southern lilt, down to his willingness invoke the ghost of Joe Louis, Crouch always manages to sound like his ghetto pass is at the ready.

Even if in his writing Crouch derides the ethics of the street, his actions close the distance between him and the gangsta rappers he abhors, making cartoons of them all. Both could live without the electric slide, whop, or moonwalk. Both could give up the cross-over and dunk.

But never let it be said that he who purports to be a black male gives up the beast. That it's all an act, and he really won't kick your ass. That in the middle of politicking over Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and tea, he won't go David Banner, upturn your table of crumpets and coffee-cake, grab you by the collar, drag you out into the darkest alley, and show you that, yes, what you have heard is true. That he will not swing through on his dick and snatch your Jane on a vine like Tarzan. Never let it be said that Jim Brown was not the essence of him. Never let it be said that he—whether Crip or Crouch—failed to be a nigga.

On The Air... Paul Porter ... IndustryEars.com

Thursday, March 31, 2005

NY DAILY NEWS "Give Rap a Break"

COO of HOT97 calls it a "screw up"

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Indy Star on Emmis and HOT 97

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Misogyny

Friday, March 25, 2005

HOT SMACKFEST KO'd NY POST

Essence "Take Back the Music" NY Town Hall (AP)

FCC/HOT97 Daily News

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

CLEAR CHANNEL GUILTY?

THE WILMINGTON JOURNAL (SMACKFEST)

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Emmis Execs in Smackfest trouble? NY POST

GIZOOGLE

Who owes the Hip Hop Community?

Saturday, March 19, 2005

NY Times HOT97

Thursday, March 17, 2005

NY Times HOT97

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Hip Hop doesn't live there anymore

Village Voice on Stanley Crouch

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