Turn The Dial

“I dumb down for my audience and double my dollars,” rhymed Jay-Z in his track, “Moment of Clarity.” A slap in the face to some fans, but a reflection of truth for others. It’s common knowledge that some of the most bland, generic and un-artistic music tends to become most popular among the masses. It also seems clear that hip-hop is one of — if not the single — the most affected genres. Connoisseurs of hip-hop and even artists themselves regularly urge others to “kill the radio” because of the poor quality of music they play. But, the most important question is why radio stations continue to follow this trend, and maybe more importantly — can it be stopped?
“Radio isn’t about the music, it’s designed to get as many people to listen as possible to sell the advertisements, “ said DJ Hyphen, co-host of Seattle’s Kube 93’s Sunday Night Sound Session. “Skeet, skeet” and “Superman”-ing hoes may be a mainstay on most radio shows, but not on this one. While most hip-hop radio may be about as enjoyable as watching your girl go down on a dude clad in Ed Hardy gear, Sunday Night Sound Session (SNSS) is a prime example of how radio stations have treated local and underground hip hop.

Placed during a time slot that most are either sleeping before going back to work, passed out on the couch after a day of watching football, or taking off your nice church clothes, this show is more tucked away than your old velour  suit. “The reason that we are relegated to Sunday nights is because it is the lowest time slot of the entire week,” says Hyphen, “if they are going to sacrifice potential ratings, that is the time to take the risk.”

Hyphen’s co-host, and a well known leader within the music community, J. Moore explains the rationale, “it’s a way for the station to say that they are supporting commercial music, but they are doing it in a way that doesn’t engage or impact in the way that it could.”
Despite being shelved in the lonely confines of Sunday night radio, Hyphen and J. Moore continue to put in under-appreciated work in the name of good music.  “People [in the radio business] don’t necessarily love music,” says Hyphen, “they may have loved it at one point, that’s probably what got them into the business, but at some point it turned into a job.”
It’s easy to understand how the passion for music can be lost, when the primary objective of the station is to retain audiences until the next commercial break. To do this, radio stations play the same short list of songs on repeat, and for good reason. When Hyphen started at Kube, he himself asked why the same songs continued to play.  What he found out was that, “radio station statistics show that the tighter the rotation (the fewer songs that you play), the more money that you make.”
This could easily be blamed on the short attention span of today’s youth, or, as it’s often called, the ADD generation. It could also be attributed to people who love music not listening to the radio.
Hyphen points out that the music enthusiasts are looking to mediums such as Pandora, blogs and forums for the next group or albums to play, not the repetitive radio.  Even with music fans looking elsewhere, this doesn’t answer why the majority of music played on the radio is “dumbed down”.
Rarely on commercial radio stations will you hear the more intelligent or conscious hip hop artists such as Lupe Fiasco, Brother Ali, or even Black Thought.  J.Moore says the problem stems from listeners’ lack of education, so radio play targets what he calls “the lowest common denominator”.
America is going dumb; not a reference to Mac Dre’s role call.
“The average radio listener isn’t conditioned to understand these messages,” says J.Moore, “It isn’t intrinsically beyond their understanding, but they haven’t been conditioned to understand it, and this confuses people and makes them uncomfortable.”  This is not only attributed to a lack of formal education, but is also due to a lack of social understanding, or street smarts.  J.Moore best breaks it down by saying “You can have a PhD and not understand life, your understanding is just as broad as the bandwidth of the station.”
Most readers may view this all as common sense and are probably thinking I’m about as provocative as Mark McGuire saying he didn’t use steroids, but there is something that can be done to change this problem: don’t turn the radio off, just turn the damn dial!
The rotation of commercial radio is made up of music being pushed by the record labels. As Hyphen sees it, “radio and labels have a symbiotic relationship, where radio only plays music that [comes from] major labels. When the music machine gets behind it, radio is more receptive to it and will give it a chance.”
Despite what the commercial radio stations play, there are independent radio stations, which have the sole purpose of playing GOOD (not Kanye’s label) music. These stations are funded by donations, and don’t have to worry about getting listeners to focus on the advertisements.
National Public Radio (NPR) stations reach 27.1 million listeners weekly (http://www.npr.org/), but this number lacks a large base of hip hop listeners.  By supporting independent stations, many of which can be found through NPR, local and intelligent music is empowered and its audience is extended.  The music of Soulja Boi kissing people through the phone could be replaced by the smooth sounds of California MC Blu.
There are independent stations in almost every city, all it takes is a search on Google.  By listening to and supporting independent stations, the quality music gains spotlight. This is the only way that commercial stations could view this art as a viable product to put in rotation. We can’t get mad at radio stations for following what Wu-Tang said to be true (C.R.E.A.M), we can only blame ourselves as listeners for not taking action to help the culture.
A few independent radio stations to check out:
Boston: WERS 88.9 FM
California: KLBC 1610 AM
New York: WKCR 89.9 FM
Salt Lake City: KRCL 90.9 FM
Seattle: KEXP 90.3 FM

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Published by Jake Greene on September 27, 2010 at 10:26 am

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