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Republic Records Eliminates Usage Of “Urban”; Urges Rest Of Industry To Follow Suit

Y2kTheNewOldies

Y2kTheNewOldies

https://radioinsight.com/headlines/...-urban-urges-rest-of-industry-to-follow-suit/

From a radio industry perspective I agree 100%. Over the past year I have been using Hip-Hop and Adult R&B as format descriptors for what the radio and music industry has long coined “Urban” and “Urban AC”. It is our belief that the “Urban” branding coined by WBLS New York programmer Frankie Crocker in the 1970s has outlived its usefulness both societally and in terms of properly defining the music. “Urban” music does not exist just in the inner cities and it should not be a PC way to say “black music”. The days of Hot AC stations defining themselves as “Today’s Best Music Without the Rap” have been gone since the turn of the century. Hip-Hop and R&B are mass appeal formats and should be treated as such.
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Republic Records is talking about renaming Urban format.
 
Republic Records' statement notes that within the music industry, "urban" was historically rooted in the need to label Black music and was not originally deemed as negative. However, over time, the meaning and connotations of “urban” have been used to generalize Black people in many sectors of the music industry.

If the artists and the rest of the music industry coalesce around this in the coming days then I think the the radio industry would need to address it with their own branding, music trades would move to rename their urban charts, etc.

This is sparked by the current justice & equality movement in the wake of George Floyd. If Republic is influential enough with their stand which I think they may be, then this could develop fairly quickly in the coming week.
 
Where is the justice & equality movement based? In the city. It's an URBAN movement. Just as this music comes from the URBAN experience. So I don't see it as negative. In fact I wonder if the experience of this past week will hurt the urban image to the rest of this country. People have watched these protests, and they've come away with an impression. To some, it's positive, to others it's negative. But it IS an urban expression. You don't feel this way standing in a cornfield. riding on a John Deere.

I trust the musicians to name their own music. If they don't like Urban, I'm fine with that. I will say that the Grammy folks have an Urban Contemporary category. They also have R&B (which is the old rhythm & blues category) and Rap. Urban as a radio format is an evolving name, and doesn't really come from a genre, so it can become anything.
 
If the artists start jumping on board in the next few days which I think they will, it's over for "Urban."

Mods may want to consider renaming this subforum, "Hip-Hop / Adult R&B / R&B Oldies." I think you're going to see an industry-wide shift to those descriptors faster than you may think.
 
When did the "urban" term become popular? And was there any controversy about the term back then?
The whole issue with terminology reminds me of the controversy over the terms "black music" and "black radio". I wasn't around back then, but I've read a lot in old issues of Billboard about it (Billboard called its R&B charts the Black charts starting in 1977). Was it just another attempt to segregate the music industry, or was it a positive term honoring the people who created the music? Billboard stopped using the term in the late 80s; I wonder if was because white artists like George Michael and Teena Marie were topping the Black charts.
 
installLSC said:
When did the "urban" term become popular?
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The OP dates it to the 1970s, started by a very highly respected radio programmer, Frankie Crocker of WBLS. This was the first radio station that called itself Urban rather than R&B.

I think your examples are correct, that it would be more offensive (IMO) to use race or color to identify a radio format than a sociological description. A lot of colleges offer something called Urban Studies. We have a chain of stores that call themselves Urban Outfitters. So the word has been used in many contexts in addition to radio formats.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
If the artists start jumping on board in the next few days which I think they will, it's over for "Urban."

Mods may want to consider renaming this subforum, "Hip-Hop / Adult R&B / R&B Oldies." I think you're going to see an industry-wide shift to those descriptors faster than you may think.
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Some of the radio stations such as KMEL 106.1 in San Francisco WPGC 95.5 in Washington DC, and KBFB 97.9 in Dallas-Ft Worth uses "Rhythmic Contemporary" instead of "Urban Contemporary". Also, I think 102.9 KBLX uses Adult Contemporary instead of Urban AC when it comes to sales and marketing to advertisers. Would it be wrong for radio industry and music label to use CHR-Rhythmic, Rhythmic AC, and Rhythmic Oldies instead of Urban Contemporary, Urban AC, and Urban Oldies.
 
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