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Public Enemy - How To Kill A Radio Consultant
My current four year-old iPod, as if sensing my desire to get one of the recently upgraded Touch versions, has started acting up on me, often refusing to even power up after a fresh recharge of the battery. It's unlikely that I'll be shelling out half a grand for an mp3 player, however, so as of late I have had to sate my hunger for new music by listening to the local radio.
Out here in Jersey, if you're looking for hip hop, you've got one of two options: Hot 97 or Power 105. For no reason other than the fact that it was programmed as the first channel on my car stereo long ago, I've settled on Hot 97 as my outlet for mass produced hip hop. It wasn't much of a choice, though - the playlists are nearly identical between the two stations, with each of them choosing their songs from what is apparently a record pool of less than fifteen singles. That's nothing new, of course; even in its heydey of the early 90's, hip hop radio during prime time was never very big on variety, deferring to whatever record label was willing to offer up the most money to control the playlist.
Over the past two weeks, however, it seems that Hot 97 has given up even the slightest pretense of having any control over their song selection, and has developed a segment that seems to be little more than a ten minute advertisement for a few very specific songs. On four of the past seven evenings (not counting Saturday and Sunday, as I wasn't listening to the show over the weekend), the sequence has been exactly the same (and this is not a part of the top 10 countdown). Not only do the same songs get played in the same sequence for the same length of time, the dj even makes the same exact cuts on the turntable:
It opens with the New York remix of Dey Know, which plays until Lil Kim's verse comes on, at which point the dj (three nights it was DJ Enuff, on the fourth I believe it was Camilo) cuts up the line, "I keep a duffle bag, just like Lil Wayne." At that point, Playaz Circle's Duffle Bag Boy drops in over the beat and plays for two verses until that gives way to the remix of Gym Class Heroes' Viva La White Girl featuring Lil Wayne. Fade to commercial for shady debt restructuring services.
The selection of Viva La White Girl, in particular, has the stench of payola all over it. That song has been out for over six months, yet I had never heard it played once on Hot 97 prior to the end of January. Now it's suddenly in constant rotation? I can only assume that sales for the Gym Class Heroes' album finally plateaued and some label exec decided to try to give it one last boost by tapping into the urban market and buying spins on 97.1. The most depressing aspect of this, however, is the use of what appears to be prerecorded vinyl cuts. I know this is no longer the age of Marley Marl and Red Alert (unless it's the throwback hour at noon), when deejays would break into intricate performances of turntablism at any given moment, but damn. If you're a professional hip hop dj, you should at least be able to do a simple cut and crossfade on a live performance.
So I've listened to P.E.'s How To Kill A Radio Consultant about four times in a row now as a form of therapy. Seemed cheaper than making the switch to satellite radio.
And speaking of Dey Know, I know I should hate this song. It's almost as if a conscious decision was made to take everything that's wrong with the current state of NY hip hop - the emulation of southern emcees' delivery, the over-the-top gangsta posturing, lyrics devoid of any substance whatsoever - and serve it up over a ringtone beat. And yet I actually find myself nodding along to this whenever it comes on the radio. I'm ashamed of myself.
2/06/2007 08:00:01 PM posted by Fresh