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- Dec 8, 2001
i picked up a copy of the SF weekly last night and read this article that talked about the death of hyphy...while i didnt care much for the type of music, itwas interesting that they noted KMEL as the reason for its demise...the article talks about the inner workings of KMEL and the personal beefs the DJs andemployees have with certain artists and fellow DJs and how they have pretty much completely shut out hometown artists from their playlist...it was a prettyinteresting read...
its a pretty long article so i wont post it here in its entirety...heres an excerpt from it...
http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-02-20/news/the-demise-of-hyphy/
its a pretty long article so i wont post it here in its entirety...heres an excerpt from it...
http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-02-20/news/the-demise-of-hyphy/
A year and a half ago, it wasn't uncommon to find at least four or five songs by locally based indie rap artists in rotation at the San Francisco-based station. These days, however, you won't find a current local rap release in KMEL's top 50, or its top 100 for that matter. In fact, the highest-ranking recent single by a Bay Area rap artist the week of February 4 was the Federation's "Happy I Met You," way back at number 187.
At present, KMEL is playing "a lot of Down South music ... anything but the Bay," according to Hannah Wagner, a publicist at SF indie digital music label INgrooves and a regular listener.
Author Jeff Chang, who has written extensively about commercial radio, feels the station has returned to standard programming: "You don't hear a lot of [new] music breaking. You didn't get a sense of excitement like you had a couple of years ago. It's gone back."
A closer look into the absence of hyphy from the airwaves found that while local artists bear a degree of responsibility for the decline of the homegrown art form, KMEL is far from blameless.
Specifically, the station
• yanked local rappers with buzzworthy records from rotation over petty personal beefs
• made it difficult, if not impossible, for artists not aligned with favored promoters to get access to station personnel
• ignored the advice of its own DJs on potential hit records by local artists
• put the kibosh on efforts to spread hyphy in other regions
• engaged in blatant favoritism toward certain artists, alongside other activities that contributed to the fragmentation of the local hip-hop community
• employed a two-tiered promotion system for major-label and independent acts
KMEL's provincial attitude toward local rap artists is perhaps best exemplified by the station's treatment of Mistah F.A.B., a charismatic Oaklander sometimes referred to as "hyphy's crown prince." According to F.A.B., a "personal situation" with current music director Big Von Johnson has existed for years. The rapper speculates that jealousy might be the cause: "Von wanted to be an artist." Still, "It's no bad blood, it's no hatred from me," he now emphasizes. (At press time, Johnson hadn't responded to several requests for an interview.)