Hot 105.9's new logo:

From the area's only hip hop station to a pig with a biker bandana on. Wow.

As "the guy who wrote the Majestic article" i felt obligated to speak on this (self-important? ha), and i was halfway through a longish diatribe but then i deleted it. I'm not going to mourn a station i didn't enjoy listening to (for those readers not from the area, Hot 105.9 used to be our commercial hip hop and r&b station-- Ciara and Bow Wow and all that) and any sort of call-to-arms just feels forced. The station's demise (according to the myspace blog of ST, Hot 105.9 DJ) "was purely a business move."

My knee-jerk response was like many other people's: "yet another example of Madison trying to destroy hip hop and wage a proxy war on people of color." Maybe that response is still valid. After all, if local businesses aren't advertising on hip hop stations because they don't want to attract black and Latino clientele, or because they view the music as evil or whatever, that does reflect upon the city. If the owners of the station didn't understand the culture and were just pimping it for money, that does reflect upon the city.

But maybe this is also just another sad example of how corporations and culture don't mix. ST also says in his myspace blog: "Hip hop had a rough year overall in 2006. Music sales were down across the country and the popular songs that were out there started popping up on station's that never even played hip hop that much before. You probably heard more Chris Brown, Ne-Yo, Ciara, Beyonce, Jay-Z, and TI on other stations that typically play rock or pop more than ever. Our companny was not getting the financial gains from it that it had once received from playing this format."

If that's the case, then i'm not really sure what to argue. I don't have the demographic or economic statistics from the station. That's capitalism. I think this situation is different from the Majestic situation, which directly involved the fans, the police, the neighborhoods and everyone interacting face to face. With the station debacle, it's harder to see the underlying foundations of racism and classism-- they still play a part, but i think the harm here to our community is going to be in the aftermath (and how it combines with a host of other factors), not in the station's format change in and of itself. Time will tell i guess.

For other views and responses, check out:

http://www.madison.com/post/blogs/emcees/index.php

http://www.madison.com/post/blogs/emcees/114825

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=72712433&blogID=216538776&MyToken=0bfe6847-6d6b-4ac7-aa34-e81b598285e3

Thanks to Hastings Cameron (the first link up there), who found all this stuff-- my blog here is just extra, probably unnecessary, commentary.

Also, check out WSUM and WORT's hip hop shows. While they remain islands in a sea of indie-techno-world-folk-talk-whatever, they're really good. In particular, the YouthSpeaks-sponsored "Cipher Zone" plays every Saturday night from 10 until midnight.