WCBS-FM Getting Into Hip-Hop!

[BACKnUSSR]

HIP HOP IS NOT DEAD! I just heard people was saying that. ive been in this since the 80's hiphop just went back to its roots and left the mainstream radio. the example is you think kanye west is hiphop. kanye west is more of an emo rap artist with r&b hooks on every song. you cant get hiphp on main stream radio, but you can get it on the IIourshow with indie artist that dont have ghost writers!

Hip Hop may not be dead....but it is waning.
It's more than just airplay.
Hip Hop ticket sales and CD sales are down at a STEEPER percentage than any other genre.

 

[oldies76]

Rapper's Delight, Rapture, and that Chaka Khan song are good crossover tunes. But CBS-FM is not going to start playing rap regularly, any more than the Jack-type formats do. Rap is incredibly polarizing, and CBS-FM goes for mainstream.

And that's a good thing. Can't stand rap, especially the "gangsta" junk. Misogynist, violent, materialistic dreck.

CBS-FM playing early hip hop....why not? Remember early, old school hip hop is over 20 years old..Rapper's Delight is from late 1979, early 1980....29 years old...a classic, right?? "Rapture" is from 1981, "I feel for you" is from 1984...these are acceptable songs...just every once in a while. It's all part of the Rock Era.

Just stay away from anything 90's onward, especially the "gangsta" trash and other hardcore rap "songs". Eventually "Bust a Move" or "Hip Hop Hooray" or even "Whoomp there it is" could be acceptable later, since these are classic hits now.

 

[scooty430]

Rapper's Delight, Rapture, and that Chaka Khan song are good crossover tunes. But CBS-FM is not going to start playing rap regularly, any more than the Jack-type formats do. Rap is incredibly polarizing, and CBS-FM goes for mainstream.

And that's a good thing. Can't stand rap, especially the "gangsta" junk. Misogynist, violent, materialistic dreck.

CBS-FM playing early hip hop....why not? Remember early, old school hip hop is over 20 years old..Rapper's Delight is from late 1979, early 1980....29 years old...a classic, right?? "Rapture" is from 1981, "I feel for you" is from 1984...these are acceptable songs...just every once in a while. It's all part of the Rock Era.

Just stay away from anything 90's onward, especially the "gangsta" trash and other hardcore rap "songs". Eventually "Bust a Move" or "Hip Hop Hooray" or even "Whoomp there it is" could be acceptable later, since these are classic hits now.

Agreed, but VERY sparingly. You could probably also play Coolio, "One Nation Under A Groove" or maybe even Califrornia Love.

One also has to consider that a big chunk of oldies listening is in the office, and with the family in the car. You want something safe. Even some of the lighter hip hop songs have language or risque topics.....plus the whole genre is kind of sleazy - doesn't fit the office.

 

[scooty430]

Hardrocker9, I've always associated Guns 'N' Roses and Motley Crew as Heavy Metal. What do you consider Heavy Metal? K-Rock at times is a little too hard for my ears to take.

Scooty930, if Rap is dying, what has taken its place, is it Alternative Rock?



Thanks,
Kevin L. Sealy

I don't really know!

It seems like the biggest sellers are pop / R and B type things. Some of these have a hip hop flavor, but none are really hip hop. Think Gwen Stefani, Maroon 5, Pink, Justin Timberlake....

But I think overall there is no "mass popular" kind of music, except with really young kids and their High School Musical and Hannah Montana stuff. From the teen years on, it seems very splintered: techno, punk, metal, emo, rap (yes, still got fans), folky stuff like Jack Johnson, jam bands (still!)..... All of these coexist is and none is dominant.

I'll say this: the band that sells out the fastest is probably Radiohead.

 

[scooty430]

I can ride with you on that tony. but in my hood, we loved hiphop and im proud to have worked with alot of the hiphop icons i had in my tape deck. like i said i work with new up & comming hiphopers and old skool artist as well so in the word of the emcee Nile Hardin, "If hiphop is dead/I found out late/I must have missed the wake. that term is a crazy statement on the underground hiphop scene. we dont deal with the so called bling bling gansta crap, the original were NWA Ice T etc. they cant be replaced. a list of some real emcees:

digable Planets
Kool Moe Dee
KRS ONE
EPMD
Kurtis Blow
Run DMC
GrandMaster Flash & the Furious 5
Eric B & Rakim
Wu-Tang
Salt N Pepa
Dougie Fresh
Slick Rick
LL. Cool J
Biggie Smalls
Tupac
Big L
and the list goes on.....

As musicians, these people have talents.

But it's marred by the subject matter. Lyrics that glorify violence, reduce women to "ho's," engage in self-indulgent and idiotic bragging, promote gangs and tagging.... None of this is good.

You list Tupac and Biggie Smalls, for example. Both were skilled at rapping. Yet they will be mostly remembered for having an adolescent feud where they hired thugs to shoot each other. Immature, and a little bit barbaric, frankly.

 

[oldies76]

Agreed, but VERY sparingly. You could probably also play Coolio, "One Nation Under A Groove" or maybe even Califrornia Love.

One also has to consider that a big chunk of oldies listening is in the office, and with the family in the car. You want something safe. Even some of the lighter hip hop songs have language or risque topics.....plus the whole genre is kind of sleazy - doesn't fit the office.

Very true. Maybe for this valid reason, CBS-FM may only want to include these hip-hop songs during a specialty weekend only and not during office hours on weekdays. And keep these songs very safe and within reason.
Just play the true, clean classics that most remember..it's a fragile area. Unlike regular hits, where we can go deep, hip hop and rap has to be handled much differently, due to content.

I'm not a fan of rap songs either, but I think we are getting to that time where, maybe early hip- hop classics may have to be included on a C/H station.

Maybe their next A to Z will include some... We shall see.

 

[Hardrocker9]

The station that played hip-hip back in the day before hot 97 was 98.7 Kiss-FM

 

[Board Editor]

MOVED: TIO: WCBS-FM Getting Into Hip-Hop!

Some posts in this thread have gone off topic into politics. They were moved to Take It Outside.

[iurl=http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=112291.0]http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=112291.0[/iurl]

 

[TonySantiago]

The station that played hip-hip back in the day before hot 97 was 98.7 Kiss-FM

You can add WBLS too

Back in the 80's Kiss had DJ Chuck Chillout and Red Alert doing the mix shows. 'BLS had Mr. Magic and Marley Marl.

 

[andreajesus]

i think this whole thread is OFF topic...only started because someone went into a tizzy over 101 playing "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang? SO WHAT? to a WHOLE generation of listeners, that song IS an oldie, #1; #2 - for pete's sakes, Sugarhill Gang was one of the featured acts at last night's "Disco Ball at the Taj Mahal" - i don't see ANYTHING wrong with 101 playing "Rapper's....." - i LIKE that song!!

as an aside to Tony S - Tony, i like when you post on ANY board - you make sense...8)

 

[MarcR]

I can ride with you on that tony. but in my hood, we loved hiphop and im proud to have worked with alot of the hiphop icons i had in my tape deck. like i said i work with new up & comming hiphopers and old skool artist as well so in the word of the emcee Nile Hardin, "If hiphop is dead/I found out late/I must have missed the wake. that term is a crazy statement on the underground hiphop scene. we dont deal with the so called bling bling gansta crap, the original were NWA Ice T etc. they cant be replaced. a list of some real emcees:

digable Planets
Kool Moe Dee
KRS ONE
EPMD
Kurtis Blow
Run DMC
GrandMaster Flash & the Furious 5
Eric B & Rakim
Wu-Tang
Salt N Pepa
Dougie Fresh
Slick Rick
LL. Cool J
Biggie Smalls
Tupac
Big L
and the list goes on.....

As musicians, these people have talents.

But it's marred by the subject matter. Lyrics that glorify violence, reduce women to "ho's," engage in self-indulgent and idiotic bragging, promote gangs and tagging.... None of this is good.

You list Tupac and Biggie Smalls, for example. Both were skilled at rapping. Yet they will be mostly remembered for having an adolescent feud where they hired thugs to shoot each other. Immature, and a little bit barbaric, frankly.

The Hip Hop community could learn much from the situation that Punk Rock found itself in around 1979. The lyrics had become so nihilistic, so anti-everything, that people became turned off by the music. The genre however managed to evolve past that stage and produce magnificant music by bands like Joy Division and XTC that still influences the musicians of more recent vintage.

 

[BruceS8852]

It seems that when WCBS-FM breaks format for just one song the posters to radio message boards go into a frenzy. This happened a few months ago on the NYRMB. Would you rather hear the same 400 burned out oldies all the time?

Bruce

 

[TonySantiago]

It seems that when WCBS-FM breaks format for just one song the posters to radio message boards go into a frenzy. This happened a few months ago on the NYRMB. Would you rather hear the same 400 burned out oldies all the time?

Bruce

Bruce,

All I can say is that I NEVER forgot that thread I've started in there about people accepting "rap" on CBS since the oldies format started leaning more into the 80's and rap (the fun stuff) was part of that.

 

[MarcR]

I can't believe I spelled "magnificent" wrong! Oh well, I'm only human.

 

[softmachine]

You got (Hot 97) WQHT & (Power 1051) WWPR and even WHTZ-100 to hear Rap.

There is a BIG DIFFERENCE between RAP and HIP HOP!!

Rap is awesome...... HIP HOP IS UTTER GARBAGE!! ("Todays" hip hop anyway)

Hot 97 is trash and I assume the other 2 you listed also play this garbage (They are a waste of airspace))

You're simple. Care to expound on the four elements?

 

[softmachine]

This is NOT our father's CBS-FM. At 12:14 this afternoon for the first time in their history the station played, "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang. Rick Stacy said he is the first one on the station to ever play rap.


I hope this is not a sign of things to come where we'll hear Jam Master Jay, Curtis Blow, the Fat Boys and their like. All of this music belongs on Hot 97 not CBS-FM.



Thanks,
Kevin L. Sealy

I have always had a hard time and still hate the notion of fragmentation and formats that everyone is so 'tuned' into that they know what's coming next-and hate what's not on their radar.

Someone once described format radio as 'wallpaper on your life' and 'Oleo' (which I guess was a fake butter/margarine) and I still think it holds true. This is applicable to most formats. This is why all radio should be just news and information and talk formats. Music is dead because a) the record companies have no more money for promotions, indies and coke to get stuff on the air; And b) that stuff that made it wasn't any good to begin with-a lot of it is BRILL SWILL-why do we celebrate that crap? There's a lot of records that all stations have neglected I'm sure. Dig those out and I'll listen. Otherwise, all yawns to me.

Music on the radio? Who cares. All the magic is gone. The thing is dead, even for 'dangerous' music like Rap and Heavy Metal.

No one wants their precious sensibilities challenged-which goes a way to explain why we have some of the problems we do in this country. Old School Hip Hop is harmless-who cares if CBS plays it. Who cares about the wig-wearing humps who listen to that station, waiting for their ED pills to kick in. Just turn it all off.

 

[Agent 00 Soul]

I feel that was good that CBS played Rapper's Delight. CBS does play Disco so why not this song. This song was played heavily in the clubs back in the day and it's just a reflection of that time and part of CBS's demo. Don't worry you won't hear any real Rap Music on this station. But I feel that Hot 97, Power 105, or WBLS should play more classic Rap Music. I know that Hot has it's HD 2 channel set up for classic Hip Hop but nothing is going on yet. KISS FM is doing more with Red Alert and Chuck Chillout on the air. I'm well aware that this is where they started and I also know that WBLS was the first Urban Commercial station to play Rap Music. Rap music has been around long enough to have it's own classic format just like Rock music does. I'd love to hear Walk This Way by Aerosmith f. Run DMC on CBS that would be hot.

 

[DToTheJ]

People forget that this is not the first time "Rapper's Delight" was heard on 101.1 FM.

Does the name "Jack" ring a bell?

 

[TonySantiago]

People forget that this is not the first time "Rapper's Delight" was heard on 101.1 FM.

Does the name "Jack" ring a bell?

Yeah...."Jack" did play "Rappers Delight". I did hear it. But "Jack" wasn't an oldies station. It was...well, "Jack!" And that station did "Jack" for the oldies fans that were ticked that their format disappeared out of nowhere.

Still.....if a station is going to the 80s, rap can't be ignored. At least the fun stuff anyway, not the "gangsta"

 

[andreajesus]

i agree with Tony - and i will re-state what i said earlier in this thread - the ONLY reason that this thread was even started was because someone was in a tizzy that CBSFM had played "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang - SO WHAT? first of all, to an entire generation of listeners, "Rapper's Delight" IS an oldie; and 2) for pete's sakes, Sugarhill Gang was part of "Disco Ball at the Taj Mahal", hosted by Joe Causi, which happened last Saturday night, and 3) that song MAKES ME SMILE EVERY TIME I HEAR IT!! so why don't we all just chill about this, okay??

Andrea