The Future of Hip-Hop & WQHT (Hot 97)

[Morpheux]

For the record,I have nothings against Country. I just don't see it working in an urban area like NYC. And one more thing about Hot 97 is that it was originally a dance leaning top 40 before Hip Hop took over permanently. It had different owners but people in NY still recall the original sound of HOT 97.

Actually, Emmis did own Hot103/97 back in 1986 when it was a Top 40/Urban station so it has been the same ownership since.
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Thanks for the clarification. I must have confuse it with the owners of 103.5 before Clear Channel bought them out.Emmis created the crossover dance rhythmic format back in the mid 80's with Power 106 out of LA and then Hot 103/97.Their not a stranger to the sound so if EDM and dance pop continues to grow this might be a route they might take again. Hot 97.

But there are many other factors involve.The CHR's in NY cover dance although it's very minimal. And rhythmic is definitely covered.I think a sound like Hot 97.5 out of Phoenix might just be the right approach with their uptempo hits based dance leaning sound.NY does want to hear new music,that's why 92.3 drop in the last PPM.They are playing too many recurrents.

 

[TonySantiago]

NY does want to hear new music,that's why 92.3 drop in the last PPM.They are playing too many recurrents.

THANK YOU!

I mean granted it's the complaint of every music fan in radio, especially the P1's, in the sense that formatically it's basically the same songs over and over again without room for the playlist to allow more new tracks in. I do realize that there is a science to this to a certain degree but still it can't hurt to add another track in here or there....at least let the mix show guys there give one track in their mix set a shot to "test the waters". Let Jay, Will, Suraci, Toro throw that one track, that is if they are not doing that already!

 

[DJKraze]

Hold on, Rapper's Delight by The Sugarhill Gang was a novelty record? Not hardly, rapping, a sub-genre of Hip-Hop was around for nearly a decade before Silvia Robinson saw an opportunity to capitalize on it. Let me tell you, when that record hit a lot of people who first heard it flipped out because they [Sugarhill] were doing it [rap music]wrong and with that taking off the way it did were worried that they were going to be left behind by this "style" [/sarcasm] of rap that was not a true representation of what was really going on in the streets. Fortunately, that didn't happen. Also, they weren't the first to get rap onto vinyl anyway, just the one marketed in a way that it had the chance to chart (possibly as a novelty in that sense). The Fatback Band with King Tim the 3rd beat them by at least 6 weeks, and there were other records that many dispute are some form of rap that came out as far back as the late 60's and even earlier. Even Charlie Daniels - Devil Went Down To Georgia has been considered to be Rap by some as he's speaking, not singing in most of that track.

But will Hip-Hop and Rap die? No, Hip-Hop is very much mixed into mainstream music these days even in the more dance leaning sub-genre, it may not always totally dominate as it has in the past, but it's deeply ingrained. As far as Rap music, the underground is still very strong and has better means of distribution than ever with the internet. It's just that it's forced to remain very underground as so much consolidation of the labels presents fewer opportunities for artists to go main stream. Mainstream Rap is another story, it's morphing in ways mentioned previously and in many other ways as well, but then again, it always has. Like it or not, even to this day it's part of nearly every genre of music that exists (ugh, rap opera comes to mind and now I feel ill), and if you don't believe me, just what do you think "Red Solo Cup" is?

 

[MarcR]

Yup Tony, EDM dance music is so huge today that the number one market in the country *still* doesn't have a dance-formatted station. And curiously, 92.3 NOW, with its pronounced dance lean, seems to have taken a hit in the ratings in the month of June, dropping by nearly an entire share! Oh well.

Thus, the example of ignorance personified......

Hey man, you made an unambiguous prediction at the start of the year that New York would have a current-dance formatted station by December. Well, we've reached July and there's still no dance station. Tick, tick, tick...

 

[Wildstyle K]

And is there any room for another Hip-Hop station

In Atlanta? Yes. There's ALWAYS room for one more in Atlanta!
You can never have too many there!  ;D