From Power 99 DJ, Cosmic Kev … (jacked from 215hiphop.com)
215: Mentioning how hip hop has such a huge generation gap now when do you think old school hip hop will have its on dial on FM radio? Now it’s either very young (Power 99) to very old (WDAS.)
Kev: Well it’s already on satellite but as far as Urban AC (Adult Contemporary) stations go they feel like rap is a young audience, which it is. They feel that old school rap is also still for the younger generation. They gotta understand that the average 35-40yr old was brought up on rap. They may have been exposed to the Temptations & Barry White but they were brought up on Kurtis Blow, the Melly Mels, and even the EPMDs. Urban AC’s are afraid to touch it because to them it’s still just rap. Where the problem is that when they hear of old school rap and an audience of 30-40yr olds, they don’t think that exists. They think that age demographic doesn’t want to hear rap anymore. I personally don’t think that’s true. I think it could happen on FM, someday, we’ll see.
That’s pretty much exactly what I think. While I would argue that rap is still a young man’s game, there is a growing body of people who came of age listening to it, who are now in the neighborhood of 40 years old. While I’m not exactly sure whether there could be an FM radio station that plays strictly classic hip-hop, I don’t think that Adult Contemporary stations should stay away from it. But there are whole sounds and movements that, as far as you might know from listening to the radio, never existed. 21 years ago, LL spoke for many of us when he said he couldn’t live without his radio. Seems that if we had to depend on the broadcast stations to hear that song, we’d have to.
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[...] Avery Tooley wonders: since hip hop has such a huge generation gap now, when will old-school hip hop…: “While I would argue that rap is still a young man’s game, there is a growing body of people who came of age listening to it, who are now in the neighborhood of 40 years old. While I’m not exactly sure whether there could be an FM radio station that plays strictly classic hip-hop, I don’t think that Adult Contemporary stations should stay away from it [thinking that rap is for a young audience and people over age 35 don’t listen to rap anymore]. But there are whole sounds and movements that, as far as you might know from listening to the radio, never existed. 21 years ago, LL spoke for many of us when he said he couldn’t live without his radio. Seems that if we had to depend on the broadcast stations to hear that song, we’d have to.” [...]
Think about this: We were still in the vinyl record and broadcast TV era when hip hop began. Scratching and mixing was one of the talents. The video era had not really begun because that was the very beginning of cable TV. Hip hoppers were on the leading edge of videos, and though it’s hard to watch a lot of those early videos, a whole lot of behind-the-scenes jobs were filled by a lot of, shall we say, non-traditional movie makers, and the industry is a lot more open than it used to be.
Hiphop also became the inroad to Hollywood. Yes, a lot of stupid movies were made, but stupid movies have always been made. Will Smith and Dana Owens are marquee stars.
most definitely. in fact, not only has hip-hop provided a lot of jobs for the people who love it, it’s also provided jobs for a lot of people who hate it. no question that it’s a global financial force.
the question is, will we ever be able to control it again?