================================ FNV NEWSLETTER #116 ================================= January 31 2003 *A Few Notes to Ponder -The Superbowl Aftermath -The President's Speech *Hip Hop News Bits -Juvenile, Daz, Ja Rule, Kurupt, Nappy Roots, Kevin Powell, Congress *The Myth of the Hip Hop Protes by Adissa Banjoko *Why Radio Sucks by Jeff Chang The FNV Newsletter c 2002 Send comments to misterdaveyd@earthlink.net =========================================== A FEW NOTES TO PONDER..... by Davey D SUPERBOWL AFTERMATH Ok lets get this out the way immediately.. Last Sunday as I sat in the upper deck of Qualcomm Stadium at the 30 yard line watching a disaster I got more than 30 phone calls from 'Well Wishers'. They came from NY, Arizona, Chicago. etc. Lots of calls came from 49er fans who were just gloating with hate. Some came from childhood friends who still live in NY... Lots of calls from New York Jets fans who were seeking revenge via Tampa. I heard from Stetsasonics Daddy O on down to Hip Hop writer Dove from Seattle. 5 of those 30+ phone calls came from Chuck D who felt it was necessary to leave me a play by play analysis on my voicemail-which I found strange because I was actually at the game. Chuck who is a die hard Jets fan despite wearing a Raiders cap in his videos, had laid about 20 reasons why he was rooting for Tampa Bay...Thanks Chuck your insight was not wanted.. I ran into WC at the start of the game. I gave my man a pound and a hug and offered to buy him a beer in honor of what I thought would be a sure Raider victory. WC who has been working out and is now buff as hell [He's been playing in a football league set up by Snoop] stuck out his chest and informed me he was a die hard Tampa fan. I almost choked on my drink.. I asked him.. 'How the hell does Mr. Westside Connection-Straight Outta Compton' root for Tampa? He gave me some long drawn out story about how he always liked the team. He told me another long story about how dope the defense was. He then went on to predict a convincing victory for his beloved Buccaneers. I kept looking for some sign that would indicate WC was kidding. I told him Ice Cube is a Raider fan.. I see him up at some of the games in Oakland. WC acknowledged that.. but said he's a Bucs fan.. and proud of it.. I was left wondering if WC had a few drinks prior to the game. As the massacre that was masquerading as a Superbowl unfolded and the zealousness of us Raider fans were silenced into disbelief, I dreaded coming home an opening my emails.. There were a couple of hundred of them... All of them coming from 'insensitive people who liked to kick cats when their down. One sista took it upon herself to send me some Bible quotes saying I should not use the Lords name in vein. Someone else sent these heartfelt remarks...: *What's the difference between the OAKLAND RAIDERS and the Taliban? The Taliban has a running game. *What do the OAKLAND RAIDERS and Billy Graham have in common? They both can make 60,000 people stand up and yell "Jesus Christ"! *How do you keep a OAKLAND RAIDER out of your yard? Put up goal posts! *Where do you go in OAKLAND in case of a tornado? To THE COLISEUM - they never get a touchdown there! I guess everyone is a comedian. I even ran into Tommy Davidson who also had jokes about the game. So in conclusion. I have to give it up and acknowledge Tampa's victory. The Bucs are in incredible team. Their defense was awesome I never seen cats move so fast. Everytime quarterback Rich Gannon hiked the ball people like Warren Sapp were in his face. It was terrible.. I hate to say this.. but as diehard Raider fan I have to be honest even when it pains me. I watched in awe at the speed and strength of Tampa's defense and I can only say one thing... Those guys were on steroids and other illegal muscle enhancement drugs!!!. They had to be.. and I just wanna know how in the world did they get away with it... Yes the Raiders lost but that was because of 'The Man'.. Yes, The Man prevented us from winning.. Nuff said.... On a more serious note... I have to point out several things that I saw going on in San Diego that may not have made the evening news... To start there were tons of fights and people wilding out in San Diego's Gaslamp District. You had rowdy Raider fans, Rowdy Tampa fans and Rowdy SD Charger fans who were drinking and colliding with one another on every block..I saw police having to arrest cats. I saw cats having to get maced. Yet when things were reported on the news all you heard were reporters saying was 'Its all Good'. The night of the Superbowl the nation was treated to footage of people burning cars in Oakland.. I found it strange that they had to go up North to Oakland and neglected to show the crazed fans who were breaking hotel windows in downtown San Diego... I watched with my own eyes how a local SD newscaster went on air with a live shot and said with a straight face that all was calm and there were no problems as he stood a block away from a shattered window. A San Diego police officer explained that the city along with the NFL were taking great pains to make sure they did not have a tarnished image. Hence certain actions and activities would be downplayed...mmmm makes you wonder.. ---------------------------------- THE PRESIDENTS SPEECH.. Lastly-What was up with the President and his state of the union speech the other night. Was it me or did he come across like a gangsta-and I don't mean that in a good way.. Don't cats get arrested and sent to jail for following his line of thinking in everyday life. Can you imagine if we replaced Bush with some kid from off the block and had him tell the country.... "Yo those guys who live on the EASTSIDE are EVIL. They have a leader and his name is BIG WILLIE and BIG WILLIE has a gun-Its a Tech 9. Tech 9s kill lots of people. It's evil. Big Willie just might use that Tech 9 on us kids who live on the WESTSIDE So we can't be having dat. Big Willie has killed before -He might kill again. F&*K all that diplomacy and talking peace nonsense. We gotta let Big Willie know the cats from the westside ain't no joke. If Big Willie ain't willing to get rid of his guns then I'm gonna have to get my boys and ride over there and buck him down and let them Eastside fools know we ain't having it... I'm gonna buck Big Willie down so we can keep the peace. I don't wanna buck e'm down.. But we got to let him know Don't F&*K with the Westside. I don't care what my mamma says. I don't care what the community says. F&*K The NAACP and the Urban League. Big Willie got a Tech 9 and he needs to be dealt with Ya Feel me?" Keep in mind while we're all mesmerized by GW and his thug mentality he's quietly pushing a bunch of Federal Judges to be nominated.. With the Republicans controlling the Senate, they might go through.. Names like Miguel Estrada, Deborah Cook, Jeffrey Sutton, Priscilla Owen and Charles Pickering are the ones up for nomination. Some of those cats make Clarence Thomas look liberal.. Next week we will give you a run down on all these judges so you can see that cats running the white house aren't playing.. In the meantime enjoy this excerpt from the president's speech.. http://www.fuckitall.com/bsh/ Davey D ===================================== Hip Hop News Bits by - Davey D JUVENILE ARRESTED Looks like drama simply cannot escape New Orleans rapper Juvenile. He was arrested the other day along with 3 other men and charged with drug possession. According to NOPD, Juvenile and his crew were pulled over after they proceeded through a car insurance checkpoint stop. While checking the insurance, the officers noticed two joints in the ashtray.. [What were these guys thinking?] That led to the officers searching the car and discovering cocaine. Now Juvenile may face some jail time if convicted. We'll keep you posted on the outcome of all this.. DAZ HAS NEW RADIO SHOW Daz recently announced that he is set to do a new underground radio show. It's scheduled to premiere this summer on Houston's KTHT Hot 97.1. Daz noted that this new radio show will expose new artist and that he and his crew will be visiting different neighborhoods to record songs with local artists that they will put on the air.... JAY-Z AND 50 CENT ALIVE AND WELL Jay-Z and 50 Cent fell victim to a vicious Internet Hoax this past weekend. Someone created a fake CNN website claiming the two had been killed. A deejay [Big Daddy DJ Iran] for WYKS radio station in Washington DC went on air and reported the fake news and started playing tribute songs.. This of course led to the rumor mill churning from coast to coast. In reality 50 Cent was in San Diego performing at a Superbowl After party which brought out the police because there were about a thousand people trying to get into the venue. As for Jay Z he was out of the country. The fake CNN News Generator site was located at http://66.111.43.11/reports/2003/WORLD/0194/6050300.html JA RULE HAS NEW MOVIE Ja Rule is working on an autobiographical movie called 'Back In The Day'. It will focus on his attempts to leave the struggles of the streets. He say's your dark past never leaves you. Ja in recent interviews stated that he wants to put the ongoing feud between him and 50 Cent to rest once and for all..We'll keep you posted on the outcome of that... KURUPT ROCKS HOUSE OF BLUES Kurupt has been surfacing from place to place..He showed up as a last minute guest for the Lyricist Lounge Concert at LA's House of Blues. He joined the stage with Black Moon, the Cocoa Brovaz and the Boot Camp Klick and got seriously busy. Unfortunately HOB had to close the curtains on them while they were still performing due to curfew constraints... NAPPY ROOTS BEING SUED Looks like Grammy nominated group The Nappy Roots' have some trouble on their hands. A St Louis musician/producer named Willie Woods is suing the group for copyright ownership and damages, claiming he wrote the hit song 'Po' Folks'. He's upset that his name appears no wear on the credits and as a result he says he wants full credit and compensation. We'll keep you posted on the outcome of this lawsuit.... KEVIN POWELL COMES TO HARVARD For the folks who are in the Boston / New England area be on the look out for author/Hip Hop activist Kevin Powell this Saturday, Feb 1st at 12:30pm.. He will lecturing at Harvard Law School on the Hip Hop Generation and Civil Rights. Admission to the event is free... Austin North classroom in the Austin Building 1515 Massachusetts Avenue on the law school campus HIP HOP-POLITICAL FORUM Another forum on Hip Hop and Politics is set to take place Feb 25th 4-6pm at the Towson Center Auditorium at Towson University. It will air on the MBC network and is being put together by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation... Panelist include; activist Rosa Clemente, political correspondent Farai Chideya, Hip Hop artist/actvist Talib Kweli, urban Think Tank co-founder Yvonne Bynoe, Hip Hop artist/activist Jahi, and author Omar Tyree. It will be moderated by Willie Gary of the MBC network. For more information hit up CBCF Congressional Fellow Richard Giles, Richard.Giles@mail.house.gov ============================================ THE MYTH OF THE HIP HOP PROTEST By: Adisa Banjoko "The Bishop of Hip Hop" "Any people, anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and force a new one that suits them better."- Abraham Lincoln Well my people, it looks like the president has really decided to do this. We're gonna go to war. The economy sucks, jobs rates are low, home buying costs are rising and the educations system is in TOTAL shambles...and still they build more prisons. The other day my wife and I were watching Malcolm X. I don't know how many of you have seen it, but I encourage you to check it out again, even if you have already. We were watching a scene where Malcolm was talking about violence as he and the beloved Betty Shabazz were watching TV. The civil rights leaders and the general Black population of the time were shown getting bitten by dogs, getting sprayed with hoses by the fire dept. and get brutalized by the police. It's still shocking to witness today. It was then that my wife pointed out a real eye opener in terms of what makes a protest effective for the people. My wife turned to me and said "See, that's why today's protests don't work anymore." "What are you talking about?" I asked. "Look, in those days, thing were bad, and the people decided they would go out and do what they had to do to bring attention to their cause. When the media played the scenes of these people getting brutalized, it slowly softened the hearts of the general public. It made people think about the state of the country. It made all people come to grips with where the country was racially and socially. It's because these people did their protesting on their own terms." "Today" she continued "if people decide they want protest, they have to go get a permit by the city. Then all the vendors set up shop to sell their t-shirts and whatever. The hot dog guy gets his permit so 'the revolution' can have some nourishment. We then find out, that we have to break down the stage and get everybody out of the plaza by 4pm. Because the clean up crews will show up at 4:30..that's not a protest" she concluded. My mind spun. She was right. All these years most of what we THINK is a protest..is just state sponsored, backed and planned public events. The concept of Hip Hop protests, is in reality, a myth. How different would the outcome be if someone said "At 12 pm on Tuesday 100,000 of us are meeting on Market St. No permits, no t-shirt sales, no hot dogs.just the people." I wonder how many would show up then? Would you show up? Only you know the real answer. Because if you DID show up, that changes everything. You might lose your job if they got involved. You might get arrested. You might miss a big test in math (awww, nobody would mind that). But you might be seen on TV by family members who might oppose this kind of protest. You might get kicked out, or evicted. Would you do that to keep the draft from coming back? To keep the body bags of our young people from piling up at the airports in droves? Would you do that show that blood is more precious than oil? Because that's what it's bout to come to. But beyond that, a protest of that kind would mess up traffic. It might hurt some businesses that day. People who did not participate might be late for work, or late coming home. They would watch to news to see what all the commotion was about. When they got home, they'd see you on the screen, fighting for what you thought was right and just. THAT, is how you get your cause heard by the masses. But I don't think Hip Hop is ready for that level of protest activity. I don 't think the Hip Hop community is dedicated enough to that kind of sacrifice. We don't have what the panthers had in them. We don't have what George Jackson, Assata Shakur, Angela Davis and Geronimo Pratt had in them. I hope I'm wrong. But either way, we're about to find out, because the war is going down. Below, I wrote some ideas that I think can help those who love Hip Hop show solidarity in protesting against the war: A Comprehensive Strategy for Using the Elements of Hip Hop for Protest Purposes 1. MC's: start rhyming about the war. You don't have to do it on every song, but you can dedicate 8 bars to the cause every 3 songs. Clear Channel is probably not playing you anyway, so don't worry about a lack of rotation. Invite the b-boys to your show and share the stage. 2. B-boys: Go to the protest functions in your local areas..set up shop and do what you do best. You might lay out your linoleum or cardboard and tag it with anti-war slogans. 3. Graf writers: You guys have been, in my opinion, the backbone of the anti establishment mindset in Hip Hop. But if you are gonna risk getting arrested anyway..don't just run around scrawling your names on wall in these times.If you are gonna go out there, teach the people. Use your art to inspire the quest for justice. Throw up anti-war slogans, quotes from great speeches, and do portraits of revolutionaries instead of just characters. 4. DJ's: On your mixtapes and in the clubs, dedicate 20-30 seconds of every hour from your set to play clips from MLK, Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, Huey P Newton etc...Throw in more Paris, PE, Dead Prez, The Coup, PRT, Zion I, Bas One, Jurrasic 5, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, and KRS ONE in the clubs, on your mixtapes and in mix shows...throw old school conscious acapellas over today' s hip hop beats.. And don't even try to tell me people don't dance to the conscious stuff..."Break the Grip of Shame" will tear up the club in any part of the country. 5. Hip Hop Print Media: Make more room in your publications for social commentary. You don't have to become "The Commemorator" to have an public opinion section in the mag. Open your hearts to the needs of the community. Also, try to chill out on hyping up disputes between rappers. Use your publications as tools of peace, rather than platforms for these brother to try to out embarrass one another. It would strengthen the community and your readership if you did that. I also included a list of books, music, and movies I think people should be taking in right now to keep their mind open to the realities of right now and to defrag their minds with much of the propaganda you see on the TV and hear on the radio. If you are in the Bay Area, do not get your books from major chain book outlets. Take the time to go to Marcus Books or whatever local mom and pop bookstore is in your area. Support the people who were putting out the real wisdom from day one. The Bishop's Books and Beats for the Kinds in the Streets Top Ten Books For Those Looking for Clarity in These Times 1. Autobiography of Malcolm X- Alex Haley 2. To Kill A Blackman- Louis Lomax 3. Masters of War- Michael I. Handel 4. The Art of Peace- Morihei Ueshiba 5. Muhammad: His Stories Based on the Earliest Teachings- Martin Lings 6. Lest We Forget: White Hate Crimes- Alphonso Pinkney 7. The Four Agreements- Don Miguel Ruiz 8. Yes, Yes Ya'll- Charlie Ahearn 9. The Art of War- Sun Tzu 10. Assata-- Assata Shakur Top Ten Hip Hop Albums to Buy During These Times 1. It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back- Public Enemy 2. Death Certificate- Ice Cube 3. Straight Outta Compton- N.W.A. 4. O.G.- Ice T 5. Lets Get Free- Dead Prez 6. By all Means Necessary- Boogie Down Productions 7. The Devil Made Me Do It- Paris 8. Quality- Talib Kweli 9. New World Order- Poor Righteous Teachers 10. Illmatic- Nas Five Other LP's to Stay Focused in These Times 1. Breaking Atoms- Main Source 2. 18th Letter- Rakim 3. Organized Konfusion- Organized Konfusion 4. Done By the Forces of Nature- Jungle Brothers 5. All Hail the Queen- Queen Latifah Five Non Hip-Hop LP's to Reflect On 1. Anything by Israel Vibrations 2. Anything by Earth Wind and Fire 3. Any John Coltrane LP 4. Stings Greatest Hits 5. Anything by Nikki Giovanni Six Movies or Documentaries to Watch 1. American History X (Ed Norton is the bomb) 2. Eye's on the Prize (doc. On civil rights movement) 3. Malcolm X (Spike and Denzel at their best) 4. Hurricane (Denzel at his 2nd best) 5. Day of the Gun (doc. By KRON News in S.F.) 6. Style Wars (hip hop doc. Very dope) As a generation, as community, this war will be our defining moment. We have done much, considering the kinds of protesting we have been doing..It has done us a lot of good, in many respects.But whatever we have, or lack, will be exposed right now. After all the sacrifices that were made by those before us, I pray we come out on top. And if you are upset about the reality of war right now, try to remember this anger the next time a voter registration drive is in your area.We might have been able to avoid all this if a few more thousand people VOTED, instead of just yapped with their mouths. Lets do all we can, to save every innocent child, woman and man. Adisa Banjoko can be reached at : soulpolisher2001@yahoo.com ====================================== Today there are Senate hearings on the state of radio and whether or not further restrictions should be lifted. This would in turn allow the local radio station in your community to own even more outlets. Lowry Mays the CEO of Clear Channel is expected to speak there.. There are scheduled rallies iand follow meetings by community groups next week with respect to this.. We will keep you posted.. This article was the cover story in this week's Bay Guardian. There's a lot more that could be added but it should give sense of how people are feeling in when it comes to radio being more of business than a form of communication that connects, uplifts communities and provides a voice..... [This one's in this week's San Francisco Bay Guardian, and on the web at: http://www.sfbg.com/37/18/cover_kmel.html] ----------------------------------- WHY RADIO SUCKS by Jeff Chang When Clear Channel bought KMEL, it destroyed the so-called people's station. Now the people want it back. THERE AREN'T MANY visitors to Clear Channel Communications Inc.'s South of Market fortress these days, other than ad buyers, talent managers, and contest winners. The first floor looks like a tiny security bunker with silent music videos flickering on small wall-mounted TVs. So on Jan. 6, when a group of hip-hop activists showed up a bunch of teens and twentysomethings, battle-hardened, some of them anyway, by campaigns against globalization and Proposition 21 the gatekeeper alerted management before allowing them up to the fourth-floor waiting room. They were there for a meeting with representatives of KMEL, 106.1 FM. In the skylighted penthouse conference room, Malkia Cyril, executive director of Youth Media Council, part of the listeners' group calling itself the Community Coalition for Media Accountability (CCMA), pressed their case. Since Clear Channel took over KMEL in 1999, she said, there has been no access to the airwaves for social justice organizations, an imbalance in programming and content, and no avenues for community accountability. KMEL representatives listened, sometimes confused, often baffled. Pop radio executives aren't used to going face-to-face with angry, politicized listeners. But then again, KMEL has never been an ordinary radio station. In recent years such meetings in which community leaders air grievances and radio execs scratch their heads seem to have become a regular thing. Once known as "the people's station," KMEL has become a target for the people's anger. For more than 15 years, KMEL has been a national radio powerhouse. It is the number-two music station in the fourth-largest radio market in the country, commanding the largest radio audience among the highly coveted 18-to-34 demographic. But perhaps more important, KMEL holds an almost mythical place in Bay Area hip-hop. During the '90s, KMEL helped launch rappers like Tupac Shakur, Hammer, and E-40. It produced on-air personalities, including Trace Dog and Franzen Wong (of the Up All Night Crew) and Renel Lewis, who seemed as around-the-way as hip-hop itself. Through its innovative community-affairs programming, it engaged the social issues of the hip-hop generation. The arrival in 1992 of a fierce competitor, KYLD-FM, also known as "Wild," which billed itself as "the party station," only reinforced KMEL's populist image. But an unprecedented wave of consolidation swept the radio industry after Congress passed the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which removed station-ownership caps. Before the ink was dry, KMEL's then-parent company, Evergreen Media, ended the ratings war with KYLD by purchasing it and the changes didn't stop there. A series of ever larger mergers culminated in 1999 with a whopping $24 billion deal in which KMEL and KYLD passed from AMFM Inc. into the hands of Clear Channel. That, critics say, is when everything that was once so right began to go so wrong. AN OUTCRY FOR MEDIA JUSTICE If the changes that began in 1996 began to turn off some longtime KMEL listeners, the Oct. 1, 2001, firing of radio personality and hip-hop activist David "Davey D" Cook shortly after his show Street Knowledge aired Rep. Barbara Lee's and the Coup's Boots Riley's objections to the war in Afghanistan was the final straw. Cook's firing seemed to symbolize the end of an era in which community input, local music, and progressive politics had a place at KMEL, and it triggered thousands of e-mails, faxes, and letters; rowdy picket lines at the station; and the current round of accountability meetings. Gang-peace organizer Rudy Corpuz of United Playaz said the message to KMEL remains clear: "Check your priorities. Without the community, your station would never have been made." The KMEL protests are a big part of a swelling national backlash in urban communities against the shock jocks, autopilot programming, and mind-numbing hype of their radio stations. On Jan. 14, Cook joined with Afrika Bambaataa and the Universal Zulu Nation, rapper Chuck D, Bob Law of the National Leadership Alliance, and black activist organizations the December 12th Movement and the Code Foundation to denounce what they say is the lack of positive black music and community voices on stations like Emmis Communications-owned Hot 97 and Clear Channel-owned Power 105.1. Many have begun calling it a movement for media justice. Cook, who hosts the Hard Knock Radio and Friday Night Vibe shows on KPFA, 94.1 FM, has now quietly and somewhat reluctantly become one of the movement's most prominent spokespeople. Speaking to the Bay Guardian from New York, he sketched out the issues. "The main complaint I've heard for three days," he explained, "is the lack of positive music, lack of access, and just the feeling that there's something foul about what I am listening to. People are really pissed from coast to coast." RADIO GODZILLA Clear Channel's vast media empire caught the public's attention during the aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when executives allegedly circulated a list of so-called sensitive songs to be banned from the airwaves. By then corporate media critics were already describing Clear Channel as the Godzilla of the radio industry. Indeed, no other firm has benefited more from the Telecommunications Act. It has gone from owning 40 stations in 1996 to owning 1,240 today, commanding over a quarter of all radio revenues and listeners. (In the Bay Area it holds a similar market share.) Its closest competitor, Cumulus Media, owns just 248 stations. "Clear Channel is the monster that destroyed radio," veteran Bay Area radio-industry watcher and columnist Bill Mann said. Critics say Clear Channel's KMEL has been distinguished by bland on-air personalities, reactionary politics, and the same seven songs that seem to be playing on every urban station everywhere. Bay Area political rapper Paris notes that in 1990, KMEL helped artists like him and Digital Underground blow up nationally. During the Gulf War the station even aired a remix of a Sway and Tech track called "Time for Peace" that featured all of them. "There was a lot more willingness to support local talent. Now that willingness is not there," he said. "Especially in this political climate, even in what many would argue is the cradle of liberalism, there's no room for anything that's progressive. Everything is rampant negativity." Wong thinks the station is a shell of its former self. "They don't care about the streets anymore," he said. RADIO FOR EVERYONE The calls for change at KMEL are coming from a powerful source: angry youths of color from the station's target audience. Last fall a group of listeners began subjecting KMEL to some hard listening. The result was a scathing critique of the station issued by the Youth Media Council and the CCMA (www .media-alliance.org/action/KMEL.pdf). The CCMA's broad front includes the Mindzeye Artist Collective, hip-hop activist organization Let's Get Free, and global justice group Just Act. They argue that since Cook was fired, progressives have lost their voice. They charge that the last remaining community-affairs program, Street Soldiers, excludes their views. They note that local artists who make up one of the most vibrant and diverse rap music scenes in the country are rarely heard on the station. The title of their report pointedly asks the question "Is KMEL the People's Station?" "They say that they're the people's station," said Just Act program coordinator and CCMA spokesperson Saron Anglon, a 25-year-old who has listened to KMEL for 15 years. "They're not talking about social change or peace. They're focusing on things like crime and war. Our communities are listening to this quote-unquote people's station, and the people are not necessarily being represented." A recent study by the Future of Music Coalition (www.futureofmusic.org), an artists' rights-public interest organization, provides a context for urban radio rage. Radio deregulation, the report argues, has left the public airwaves dominated by companies that have laid off hundreds, decimated community programming, and all but standardized playlists across the country. The report also found that an overwhelming majority of listeners want playlists with more variety and more local artists. It cites research pointing out that the time an average listener spends with the radio has dropped to a 27-year low. On Jan. 6 the newest FCC commissioner, Jonathan Adelstein, spoke to attendees at a Future of Music Coalition conference in Washington, D.C. He echoed the concerns of media justice activists across the country, said, "We must ask ourselves: At what point does consolidation come at the cost of the local expression that makes radio so unique and so special in this country? At what point does allowing consolidation undermine the public interest and the quality of what we hear on the radio?" For a growing number of alienated urban radio listeners, the answer is "Now." BUILDING THE PEOPLE'S STATION During the early '80s, Bay Area urban radio was stagnating, dominated by slick, disposable R&B. At the same time, college- and community-radio stations like KPOO-FM, KZSU-FM, KUSF-FM, and KALX-FM were championing hip-hop. Danyel Smith, the author of More like Wrestling and a former Vibe magazine editor in chief, was a columnist for the Bay Guardian during the years hip-hop broke. "You had to know where Billy Jam was gonna be playing, where Davey D was gonna be playing," she said. "To the rest of the world, they were very little radio stations that came in staticky, and the show was on in the middle of the night, but you were in the know, and things were really exciting. And as much as I think we all liked being part of our little secret thing, we all thought, 'Wow this music needs to be heard by everyone. Someone needs to take it and blow it up, give it the respect that it deserves.' And for the Bay Area, that station was KMEL." During the mid '80s, KMEL changed from a rock format to a "contemporary hits" format and became one of the first crossover pop stations in the nation to target young multiracial audiences with hip-hop, house, and reggae music. To make it work, KMEL desperately needed street credibility. College- and community-radio jocks, such as KALX's Cook, Sadiki Nia, and Tamu du Ewa, and local artists, including (now-MTV personality) Sway and King Tech, were recruited to the station. "They took what we were doing at community radio and brought it to the station," said KPOO personality KK Baby, who joined KMEL in 1991. "They would use us to attract the rest of the pop music audience." Most of the jocks were never offered full-time positions, but they brought their audiences with them and became the central force in pushing KMEL to play cutting-edge music and offer community-oriented programming. Street Soldiers evolved from Hammer's idea to have a forum for young people to talk candidly about issues like gang violence. (The syndicated show is now hosted by Joe Marshall and Margaret Norris of the Omega Boys Club.) Davey D's hugely influential Street Knowledge program debuted in 1995 as a talk show for the hip-hop generation, dealing with topics spanning race, gender, and class. On his second show Davey D hosted a roundtable on the state of civil rights that featured Jesse Jackson, then-assembly speaker Willie Brown, Chuck D, Paris, and Belva Davis. With a formula of underground-friendly playlists, activism-savvy programming, and street promotions, the station's ratings soared in the early '90s. KMEL's approach progressive, edgy, multicultural, inclusive fit the Bay Area well. Listeners embraced the people's station with open arms. KMEL's music shows and community-affairs programming, even its popular Summer Jam events, were soon imitated throughout the country. The 1992 ratings war with KYLD brought out the best in most people. Michael Martin, who was then KYLD's program director and now serves as Clear Channel's regional vice president of programming, said, "We felt KMEL was a little lazy, so we came in with a vengeance." It was in this fierce competition that mainstays like Sway and Tech's Wake-Up Show, Street Soldiers, Street Knowledge, and KYLD's Doghouse stepped forward. At the same time, the dueling stations let the mix-show DJs experiment with local music, resulting in hits for artists like Tha Click, Conscious Daughters, Mac Mall, and the Luniz. The audience expanded to include listeners from San Jose to Pittsburg. ALL AROUND THE WORLD THE SAME SONG Then the Telecommunications Act was passed. FCC chair Reed Hundt defended the legislation by arguing, "We are fostering innovation and competition in radio." But by all accounts, KMEL's innovative years were over. After a dustup between Too $hort and the Luniz at the 1995 Summer Jam, local artists were reportedly pushed off playlists. Mix-show DJs increasingly found their mixes subject to approval by higher-ups. Specialty shows were quietly eliminated. The battle for young urban ears ended with KMEL's purchase of KYLD. Three years later, Clear Channel swallowed them both. To the listener, consolidation is probably most apparent in what the stations play. Just listen to KMEL's and KYLD's nightly countdowns of the seven "most requested" (their own words) songs. On any given night the stations may share as many as four of their seven "most requested" songs the same 50 Cent, Ashanti and Ja Rule, LL Cool J, and P. Diddy tracks that are playing across the country. The exception, "Closer," by the Bay Area's Goapele, which was added to KMEL's rotation last month, stands out like a diamond for its rarity. "Programming is more or less centralized," columnist Mann argued. "This is not guesswork. They've got too much money and too many shareholders at stake to leave much to chance." But Martin, who programs KMEL, KYLD, and K101-FM while overseeing the playlists of all of the other Clear Channel stations in northern California, denies this. "There is no centralization of programming at Clear Channel," he said. "There is no such thing as a national type of playlist." Still, this is small consolation for local artists like E-A-Ski, who, despite producing records for Master P and Ice Cube that have sold millions of copies and holding a national fan base for his own rap records, still finds himself knocking from the outside. After Clear Channel took over, he and other local artists went to KMEL to protest their exclusion. As a result, Davey D got the green light to begin broadcasting the short-lived Local Flavas show. These days E-A-Ski is one of a tiny number of local artists heard on KMEL, but only because he is on a remix of Atlanta rapper Lil' Jon's "Who U Wit." "If you look at the South, they got all their DJs and their radio to support their records. The same system they have, we had," he said. "Everybody else is supporting their music, but KMEL isn't doing it." Martin dismissed such complaints, saying, "No matter what market you go into, you hear the same complaint from the same people: you don't support local artists, you don't play this. Bottom line is, if they would put out hit records that are equal in hit quality to the other stuff we're playing on the air, there wouldn't be an issue." He does concede that playlists have tightened over the years. "I will tell you that, around the country, the stations that play less have bigger ratings. Power 106 in L.A., who has huge ratings, their most-spun record in a day can go up to 16 times in a day. My most-played will hit 11, maybe 12, that's it," he said. "Because, at the end of the day, the hits are the hits. And the audience comes to you for a reason to hear the hits. "The listeners don't care who owns us, or whether or not [stations] are owned by the same company, or the same person is programming them," he added. WHO STOLE THE SOUL? Martin's canny management took KYLD from "worst to first," as he puts it. But as KYLD caught up to KMEL in ratings and revenue during the late '90s, the people's station suffered a slow death. "There were four different mergers. People were cut all along. People were just getting frustrated, and then when Clear Channel came in, that was the worst [part] of it all," onetime KMEL DJ Nia said. Shortly before she was laid off, Nia's cohost, du Ewa, who also engineered the overnight shows, was shown her own obsolescence when she was trained on the programming system created by Clear Channel subsidiary Prophet Systems Innovation. "The [software] has the music, commercials, and in-house station-promotions elements. I could look on there and find Wild's and [KISS-FM's] programming as well," she said. "Their idea was to cut late-night shifts, cut as many people as they can, and have more voice-overs. The late shift I used to do from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. on the weekends is now digitally preprogrammed." For the listener, this process, known as "voice tracking," crushes the notion that all radio is local. Jocks may prerecord vocal drops and listener calls to send out to other Clear Channel stations throughout the region. Labor unions argue that Clear Channel utilizes voice tracking to violate labor contracts, according to Peter Fuster, vice president of the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists' New York chapter. Consumer groups say it undercuts radio's public mission to provide news, information, and color for local communities. The practice is so controversial that it has already provoked a National Labor Relations Board charge against KMEL's New York counterpart, Power 105, which imported former KMEL DJ Theo Mizuhara's voice for overnight programming. Mann said, "For years I've been calling them Cheap Channel, because they consolidate and they lay people off." Other industry insiders speculate that Clear Channel is in a bind because it overpaid for its radio properties. Many former KMEL employees say it was Martin who presided over Clear Channel's gutting of KMEL. During the summer of 2000, he replaced the station's fired program director, Joey Arbagey, and was handed programming responsibilities for both stations. "All these years you're competing with him, now he's your boss," du Ewa said. "He was on this personal vendetta to prove that he could make that place totally successful with his people. And eventually that's who he had in there, a whole new staff of his people." Despite being among the highest-rated radio personalities in the Bay Area, the Up All Night Crew's Wong was dismissed. He had started at KMEL as a 14-year-old intern and worked his way up to become one of the station's key assets. He was cohost of a popular video show on the California Music Channel, one of the most visible Asian American radio DJs in the country, a big supporter of local artists, and a bona fide Bay Area street hero. "My contract was up January 1, 2001. I had the meeting with [Martin] on January 2, 2001, and that's when I got let go," Wong, now a radio personality in Las Vegas, said. "I told him, 'Thank you,' and I walked out. The thing that burned me the most is that I didn't get to say good-bye to my listeners." (Martin says Wong was fired "due to insubordination" and will not comment further.) On Oct. 1, Davey D was fired. He recalls his last few weeks at the station as being surreal: "I remember after 9/11, I got a call, and they wondered where the candlelight vigil was for the night. I said, 'The candlelight vigil?' And it was like, 'Yeah, we need to send the street team there.' That's typical of radio these days." 'Why support them?' Execs at Clear Channel note that its stations' ratings are higher than ever. In the just-concluded books for fall 2001, KMEL rose to a 4.3 share, which they say represents an audience of nearly 692,000 listeners, up from 562,000 when Davey D was fired. "When you start to see ratings slip, you need to make changes, and the changes that we have made have made KMEL a higher-ranked, higher-rated radio station," Martin said. But Davey D argues that the numbers don't measure whether people are satisfied or simply have nowhere else to go. "You may have more listeners than you ever had before, but you also have more complaints than they ever had before. You have people dissatisfied in a way they never were before. You have people meeting, doing demonstrations, writing letters, doing monitoring and hearings and all this stuff that never happened before." Thembisa Mshaka, former rap editor for the Gavin Report trade magazine and now a Columbia Records executive and Emixshow magazine columnist, argues that companies like Clear Channel no longer care about "stationality" an industry term for how well a station distinguishes itself by its personality, as reflected in the styles of the DJs and the presentation of local music and news. With the growth of alternative radio outlets, via satellite and Internet, addressing community complaints may represent Clear Channel's last, best chance to keep Bay Area listeners interested. "There are still as many listeners out there to keep these stations going, but they've gotta be concerned about their future. They're kidding themselves if they're not," Mshaka said. KMEL has allowed the past half decade of successful local R&B and hip-hop acts to pass it by, including important artists like Meshell Ndegeocello and the Coup. "They're excluding themselves from the musical renaissance happening in the Bay Area," KPOO's KK Baby said. And since Street Knowledge ended with Davey D's firing, no current programming reflects the brilliant voices of the burgeoning local hip-hop-activist movement, which has been instrumental in setting the national agenda for post-boomer progressives. Recently, Clear Channel execs have made some concessions. Since the release of the CCMA's report in November, they have added a battle-of-the-rappers segment and a Friday-night local artist mix show hosted by Big Von and have brought back the Wake-Up Show. They've also agreed to open an ongoing dialogue with the CCMA. In fact, execs and activists left the Jan. 6 meeting optimistic that they could work together. But others are skeptical. "Now people in the streets are talking," rapper E-A-Ski said. "I've had cats that just really want to say, 'If they ain't gon' support us, then why are we supporting them? Don't let them come out to the streets and the clubs.' " Yet he continues to work with the station. "Big Von said to me yesterday we got a lot more work to do. So I take that as we're moving towards trying to make a new era in Bay Area rap, and I'ma hold cats to that. But when I don't see it, I'll be the first one to make a record letting them know." But will it get played? He paused to consider the irony. "What am I supposed to do? Sit around here and just keep begging motherfuckers? I'm not gon' keep begging." -end- ================================ The FNV Newsletter c 2002 Send comments to misterdaveyd@earthlink.net