Intersecting Losses

This week has marked an important loss of two great people who have shaped many a person's life, but particularly hip-hop community members and the many scholars of hip-hop who pursued critical histories during their education journeys.

This week, Howard Zinn, Professor of History at Boston University and author of a People's History of the United States, passed away. Zinn was a fiery political activist and excellent writer, who brought to light the history of peoples maligned to the corners and crevices of history.

Zinn encouraged students to look more critically at the history they were reading, asking not what the history said, but who was doing the saying? Such efforts to disrupt the status quo influenced countless activists, scholars in law, history and political science, not to mention students of all ages. His work helped encourage a history that was more responsive to the masses, and that did not reside in the white-washed mind's eye of the historical studies apparatus. His work critiqued what history was and developed a theory for what history could be.

Likewise, this week, Donnie Simpson, long-time Washington, DC DJ steps down from his post at WPGC radio. Donnie Simpson began working in radio in his hometown of Detroit at the tender age of 15. He relocated to DC in the late 70s. In 1981, he made is television debut at the local Washington, DC NBC affiliate. In 1983, he joined BET becoming one the first VJs in the country. Simpson has greeted visitors on his morning show on WPGC since 1993. Donnie Simpson has been a shining star in the DC radio community for some 30 years and his departure will leave a tremendous void for this community. He has been an active participant in charitable organizations and also established his own scholarship fund, with his wife, for minority students.

The combination of these two events should have a significant impact on hip-hop listeners and scholars. My guess is that more than a few readers have stories of how reading Zinn for the first time made them reconsider historical studies and how listening to Donnie Simpson in the morning put them in a positive mood. It's not every week that two legends leave us, and we'll be hard pressed to find someone to carry on their respective legacies.

-- Nick J. Sciullo

How An Electronic Device May Be Eradicating Hip Hop Radio

Basking in the glow of the Steelers sixth Super Bowl title and the Penguins’ march to their first Stanley Cup since 1992, Pittsburgh natives were brimming with civic pride this spring. That glow dulled ever so slightly on May 15, when Steel City residents learned they were about to lose a local institution that some cherished as much as the city’s illustrious professional sports franchises.

WAMO 106.7 FM, Pittsburgh’s only hip-hop radio station, had unexpectedly been sold to a Catholic organization. Founded in 1948 by a white Navy cadet who dreamed of providing a voice for all of the city’s races and ethnicities, WAMO was to be rededicated to religious programming by its new owners.

But why, many asked, would a radio station that had so ably filled a niche in Pittsburgh for more than half a century suddenly decide to give up on itself and its listeners and cash out for a modest $8.9 million?

The answer was just as mysterious: according to WAMO management, a cell phone-sized device known as the Portable People Meter (PPM) was mostly to blame for the station’s demise. Although many listeners had never heard of the PPM, radio executives around the country were already engaged in a pitched battle against a device they claim is slowly driving out of business radio stations that enjoy popularity with minorities.

The PPM is used by media marketing research firm Arbitron, Inc., to compile listener data relied upon by advertisers wishing to reach the largest audience possible. Introduced earlier this decade, the PPM is given to select individuals by Arbitron so that the company can track and record the radio stations they listen to over an extended time period. The PPM achieves its purpose by collecting inaudible codes embedded in the audio of the programming to which the listener is exposed and relaying the data back to Arbitron. The use of PPMs replaced the previous method of collecting such data, which was based on the more unreliable written journals kept by selected listeners.

Although one would expect PPMs to produce more accurate marketing data than the paper journals, critics argue that Arbitron’s deployment of the devices has resulted in discrimination and dire financial consequences for radio stations with audiences comprised largely of minorities.

Specifically, critics point to Arbitron’s heavy reliance on public telephone directories for solicitation of potential PPM carriers. Statistics show that Hispanics and African-Americans represent the largest number of cell phone-only households, which means that members of these households are more often excluded from participation in Arbitron’s studies than other ethnic groups. That wouldn’t seem to bode well for radio stations such as WAMO, whose listeners are less likely to show up in the Arbitron ratings used by advertisers to determine which radio stations will receive their lifeblood revenue. For its part, Arbitron claims that it has instituted a “Feet on the Street” campaign in an effort to attract more minority participants for its data collections.

In response to the controversy, the Federal Communications Commission opened an official inquiry (read the full inquiry here) into Arbitron’s use of PPMs. Comments by interested parties (akin to administrative amicus briefs) were filed on July 1, and comments on the initial round of comments are due to the FCC today.

As for WAMO (named after Pittsburgh’s three rivers, the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio), the station could still be heard broadcasting hip hop to the masses on Thursday night despite its recent change in ownership. However, other American radio stations enjoyed by a large number of minority listeners could face a more unceremonious end without changes to Arbitron’s PPM regime.

It's Hard Out Here for a "Pimp", Even on Commercial Radio

"Every Black Man who goes in the studio has always got two people in his head: him, in terms of who he really is, and the thug that he feels he has to project—the performance thug."

- Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes

Hip Hop group Three 6 Mafia won an Oscar for best original song with "It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp", which was part of the soundtrack for the movie Hustle and Flow. Given that Three 6 Mafia is the second Hip Hop group to win an Oscar, it is obvious that Hip Hop has become mainstream. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 has strengthened corporate control of radio stations and has allowed for the commodification of Hip Hop music. Corporate control of radio has stifled social commentary and diversity present in "old-school" Rap and Hip Hop. Instead, corporate control has encouraged the proliferation of Gangsta Rap and the Gangsta Image, which has become the de facto voice of contemporary Hip Hop culture. Although some Gangsta Rappers are "pimping" this image for fame and money, some are also “pimping” for the opportunity to include socially conscious and relevant lyrics on their albums.

This Gangsta image is steeped with racial and sexist stereotypes about urban Black men and women. Introduced to the consuming audience is the n***a persona who is a Gangsta, making his money as a pimp, hustler, drug dealer or killer. The Black woman B***h or ho is a hypersexualized vixen intent on bringing the Gangsta down via sexual manipulation or even violence. The Gangsta Rap currently dominating the nation’s radio airwaves transmits misogynistic and violent messages (directed at other Black men and women).

While promoting the image of the outcast and outlaw, Gangsta Rap also promotes excessive consumption of sneakers, jeans, colognes, champagne, cars, and sports drinks. Given the hyper-commercialization of the Gangsta image, radio station owners have clamored to attract this urban consuming audience, which studies have shown is primarily White, male, and suburban. Socially conscious Rap rarely gets played because radio station owners fear losing advertising revenue as a result of declining white suburban listeners.

In the late 1970s, Hip Hop rose out of the ruins of a post-industrial and ravaged South Bronx as a cultural expression of young, urban Black and Latino men. Written off and rendered invisible by White and Black politicians, these young men were isolated and ignored in what was categorized as a dying city. Rap and Hip Hop allowed these young men to celebrate and live their lives.

Through radio air play, these young men attained visibility from an otherwise marginalized existence in America. In fact, Rap would be proclaimed as the Black CNN. Many rappers gave voice to what would have otherwise remained unseen by the larger dominant American public: police brutality, poverty, and urban deterioration. With its confrontational style, Rap defied both Black and White middle class norms. Rappers spoke in their own voice and on their own terms, as members of a historically marginalized segment of America's population living in America's blighted urban areas.

Today, although Gangsta Rappers have glorified the very racialized and stereotyped images that have contributed to their exclusion and repression, they have reaped more financial reward than any other generation of Black activists, musicians, and artists.

Not unlike the originators of Rap, today’s Gangsta Rappers have limited societal visibility and resources. They have achieved a modicum of commercial success, even while some have sown seeds of resistance in a very mass-mediated and corporate dominated space. Such resistance receives much less attention than the Gangsta Image. Although such resistance may not necessarily translate into a vision of a more just society or a call for a social movement, it nevertheless serves, in a subversive way, as a challenge to the corporate and dominantly inscribed Gangsta Image.

For example, at the very sites where the commodified Gangsta Image is created - albums containing the Gangsta Rap lyrics - some rappers squeeze in a few tracks subverting the very image of the Gangsta. In “Moment of Clarity” on The Black Album, Jay-Z, a multi-platinum Gangsta rapper, asserts that he would not make any money if he rapped positively like Talib Kweli or Common:

"If skills sold, truth be told, I'd probably be
lyrically, Talib Kweli
Truthfully I wanna rhyme like Common Sense
But I did five mill' - I ain't been rhymin like Common since
When your cents got that much in common
And you been hustlin since, your inception
Fuck perception go with what makes sense
Since I know what I'm up against
We as rappers must decide what's most important
And I can't help the poor if I'm one of them
So I got rich and gave back, to me that's the win/win"

Given his (and most rappers') former situation as a young Black man in urban America who hustled to make ends meet, he declares that he had to make the best of his situation and rap about what made money.

Still other songs, like Jadakiss' "Why?" on his Kiss of Death album, take on a clearly political and serious tone (although it is wedged between other songs glorifying the Gangsta life). In it, he suggests that George Bush had information about the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center before it happened.

These songs obtain much less visibility via radio air play. However, these rappers’ lyrics suggest a 21st century double-consciousness reminiscent of W.E.B. DuBois. The rappers are aware that the music industry is exploiting them, but they have chosen to take on the corporate-created and consumer-driven public image.

Ironically, the proliferation of the mass-mediated Gangsta Image has begun to foster a much needed discourse within the Black community on issues related to racial stereotypes, misogyny and violence - issues that pre-date Hip Hop and Gangsta Rappers. Neither the Gangsta Rappers’ subverted resistance to the Gangsta Image nor this renewed racial discourse justifies the virulent misogyny and violence in Gangsta Rap lyrics and images. However, the subversive maneuvering of Gangsta Rappers suggests that Gangsta Rappers are not just being "pimped", but are doing a little "pimping" of their own.

Historically, radio played an important role in providing a forum for socially conscious Hip Hop cultural and political expression. The 1996 Telecommunications Act led to the consolidation and corporate takeover of radio stations, which has had a deadening effect on positive discourse among America’s young, urban, Black men, through Rap and Hip Hop. As a result of the 1996 Act, radio airplay is no longer balanced, but instead heavily slanted towards the racialized and sexualized image of the Gangsta Rapper for the purpose of promoting consumption. More space needs to be made on the radio airwaves for socially relevant Hip Hop, and the 1996 Telecommunications Act must not stand in the way.

- Akilah Folami

Note: A version of this post first appeared on the Talking Justice blog.