Bob Law: History of Black Radio and the Removal of Black Militant Thought

Bob LawOver the past few weeks Hard Knock Radio has been doing a series of interviews focusing on the state of Black media. Such a series would not be complete without getting some critical insight from long time freedom fighter and media justice advocate Bob Law.  He is one of the Godfathers of Black radio and has never wavered in using the airwaves as a tool for liberation.

In our conversation, he gives a serious history lesson not just on the evolution of Black Radio and the role it has long played in the Black Freedom Struggle, but he also talked to us about how there has been an attempt to remove, silence and erase any institutional memory of Black militant and radical thought.  Law painstakingly details how that has been happening and breaks down the reasons why.

Law pinpoints much of this removal with the release of the 1972 Harvard Report, officially known as Study of the Soul Music Environment‘ . This was a white paper commissioned by Columbia Records and done by a group of Harvard Business students on how to take over the Black independent music scene. Clive Davis was the head of Columbia at that time. Law details how that report coincided with other attempts in film and TV to eradicate, marginalize and ridicule strident, politicized Black voice in the music and entertainment industry.

During our discussion, we play an excerpt from a speech given to Black music industry executives by Minister Farrakhan in 1979 who makes note of this change. That speech is contrasted with a speech Martin Luther King gave to a similar body of Black music industry folks in August 1967, where he heaped praise on them and emphasized that there would be no Civil Rights Movement had it not been for Black Radio. The organization he spoke to at that time was called NATRA (National Association of Television and Radio Announcers)

During our interview Law details what took place after King gave that speech. He explained that NATRA was destroyed by white industry executives who were concerned about their growing power and political influence. That destruction and silencing has never stopped.

This interview is a serious history lesson from a pioneering figure who really knows his stuff.

https://soundcloud.com/mrdaveyd/hkr-09-22-14-bob-law-the-history-of-black-radio-no-justice-no-profit

Here’s a couple of things to give more context to Bob Law’s remarks.. First is a video fo from ABC News with former FBI agents talking about studying and destroying Black Culture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHnUFpCeGxQ

The second is excerpts from that Dr King’s speech given to NATRA juxtaposed with Minister Farrakhan’s speech given 12 years later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHdnMfGtAxM

Below is an article Law recently penned called Up Above My Head I Hear Music In The Air. It his take on where Black radio is at right now

 If one should desire to know if a kingdom is well governed, if its morals are good or bad, the quality

of its music will furnish the answer. — Confucius

 Bob LawCurrently the airwaves are filled with messages that are violently anti woman, anti Black and in a real sense anti life itself. We are inundated with lyrics, dialogue, and images, from music videos, song lyrics and DJ comments that glorify violence while encouraging the degradation and exploitation of women, to video games that require that you kill people in order to stay in the game and move forward.

To understand our concern, perhaps it is helpful to understand the emotional significance and influence of music. As noted musician David Byrne has explained, music tells us things, social things, psychological things, physical things about how we feel and perceive our bodies, and it does it in a way that other art forms cannot. It is not only in the lyrics as Byrne and others have pointed out, it is also the combination of sounds, rhythms, and vocal textures that communicate in ways that bypass the reasoning centers of the brain and go straight to our emotions.

Poet Larry Neal, one of the architects of the Black Arts movement of the 1960’s has said that our music has always been the most dominate manifestation of what we are and how we feel. The best of it has always operated at the very core of our lives. It is the music that can affirm our highest possibilities. That may be precisely why the best of our music is under siege.

It is also important to understand that in this society, music conveys social status. Being associated with certain kinds of music can increase your social standing, Consider the higher level of sophistication associated with opera or classical music, or the level of cool sophistication associated with the music of Coltrane, Monk and Miles.

Some have suggested that while we may indeed like the music, often what we really like is the company it puts us in. In this sense the music creates a community or life style that is validated by the acceptance of the music. It is the music that validates the “Gangsta”

Currently the airwaves are dominated by a body of music, images and ideas that has established a code of behavior that denigrates women, and encourages the murdering of Black people. It is a lifestyle where all women are “Hoes” and “B—–s”. Consider this “gangsta” lyric. “I got a shotgun, and heres the plot. Takin Niggas out with a flurry of buckshots . Yeah I was gunnin and then you look, all you see is niggas runin”.

Music, images and dialogue that offers another view cant get reasonable airplay. The airwaves are regulated by the FCC, a commission that was established in 1934 to regulate in the public interest. When George Bush installed Michel Powell as Chairman of the commission, in 2001, Powell said he did not know what in the public interest meant.

Since the 1996 telecommunications act which set the framework for deregulation, the FCC has been reduced to pablum serving only to sanction the acquisition of broadcast frequencies and license to the mega media corporations which has resulted in the concentration of media ownership into the hands of very few.

Under the major revisions of US telecommunications law, the first since the 1930s, members of the general public no longer have “legal standing” to challenge broadcast policy or to insure that the public interest is served. Now it is the licensee (station owner) that controls content.

Previously the station owners rented the airwaves, while the general public owned the airwaves. That is no longer the case. None the less the Federal Communications Commission is still directly responsible to congress, and since Black media ownership is a major casualty of deregulation, and since the diversity of opinion and ideas coming directly from the Black experience in the world are being removed from the marketplace of ideas, we have appealed to the Congressional Black Caucus in general and the New York congressional delegation in particular to urge congress to reexamine the current function and effectiveness of the FCC.

Our first appeal to the CBC was December 6 2012, and in spite of additional attempts to reach members of the CBC, to date congress members, Evette Clark, Gregory Meeks and Hakeem Jeffries have freely dismissed our appeals to them.

Perhaps if there is a link established between the murderous video games and the young white boys who routinely walk onto a school campus or shopping mall with automatic weapons and open fire, congress might then act to reestablish some guidelines that would force broadcasters to allow for input from the community in the effort to balance what is being offered on Americas broadcast spectrum.

But as long as Black people, especially Black women are the primary victims of this insidious violence, even the increasingly irrelevant Black congressional leadership ignores us.

Franz Fannon is correct, “Ultimately a people get the government / leadership they deserve” It is time to support the kind of leadership we truly deserve.

written by Bob Law

 

Hot 97 Protest…Now Sharpton Wants to Jump in-What’s the Hustle?

Now Sharpton Wants to Jump In… What’s the Hustle? Hip Hop Activists Respond…
by Davey D

DaveyD-Raider-frameToday the NY Daily News ran an article about the Reverend Al Sharpton wanting to write letters to the FCC and call for a 90 day ban on ‘gangsta rap’ and anything that reeks of violence and has the potential to spill out in the streets.

This sounds good on the surface and considering what took place last week at Hot 97 in New York it sounds damn near practical… But there’s always a catch and a behind the scenes story to the one being sold to us.

First we have to ask ourselves where Sharpton was over the past few years when these media reform campaigns were first conducted, the most prominent being the ‘Turn off the Radio Campaign‘ that was launched and supported by community activists Bob Law, the December 12th Movement, Chuck D of Public Enemy, dead prez, The Zulu Nation and numerous others community organizations in New York.

A huge tribunal featuring a number of NY City Council members, artists ranging from Hip Hop luminaries like Stetsasonic, Public Enemy and Afrika Bambaataa to legendary R&B crooners Ray, Goodman and Brown who filled a church on Madison Avenue in Harlem in January of 2003 to address the important issue of how Black folks were being depicted in media outlets serving New York.

There were at least a 1000 people in attendance and the tribunal went on for at least 5 hours with community member after community member speaking and airing out their grievances. Sharpton was no where to be seen. Nor was he around to lend his considerable clout in the months that followed when Law worked tirelessly to get this campaign off the ground. Sharpton was not around when the Turn off the Radio Campaign sparked off in other cities like Kansas City, and Cleveland to name a few. Sharpton was no where to be seen when similar efforts were launched in places like Detroit (Black Out Fridays), Seattle, Chicago and most recently Miami.

Al Sharpton

Al Sharpton

Sharpton was absent from the fight when the huge media reform campaign called the ‘People’s Station Campaign‘ sparked off in San Francisco. Here members of the Hip Hop community including artists and numerous organizations got together monitored the Clear Channel owned Urban Music stations in the area and issued a report to the community and various media outlets. The efforts not only forced change on the big Urban giants KMEL and KYLD, but it was the subject of numerous media stories including a huge front page story penned by author Jeff Chang called Urban Radio Rage How Clear Channel Wrecked KMEL on front of the Bay Guardian.

Many of the issues that Turn off the Radio campaign as well as the other efforts around the country, were similar to the ones raised by the coalition that protested against Hot 97 last Friday at Union Square Park. People have grown tired of the racist remarks directed at the communities of color this station serves. They were tired of the type of degrading music that is constantly being pumped. The recent shooting in front of Hot 97 involving 50 Cent and Game’s entourage was just icing on the cake for the momentum that had already been brewing within the Hip Hop community.

Hopefully people do not forget that what was the real catalyst behind Friday’s March 4th protest was the insidious, racist Tsunami song that Hot 97’s executives allowed Miss Jones and her morning crew to put on the air. Initial complaints to the station were ignored and dismissed until websites like Okayplayer.com owned by the Grammy Award winning Hip Hop band the Roots and WBAI DJ J-Smooth and his blog HipHopmusic.com alerted their readers what was going on.

This in turn sparked more people to come forth as Smooth, Okayplayer and other Hip Hop oriented websites began chronicling the tireless efforts of organizers with the Asian and Southeast Asian communities that had now taken up the fight against Hot 97. Because of the similarities and concerns raised in previous efforts, folks from all backgrounds were able to come together and re-address the grievances at Hot 97.

Protest at Hot 97

Protest at Hot 97

Again Sharpton was absent. During the whole Anti-Asian Tsunami incident there were no headline making statements from Sharpton about media reform or restraint. He was absent from this highly publicized fight. No phone calls, no letters, no nothing. He didn’t even come to the first protest at Hot 97 which was attended by City councilmen Charles Barron and John Liu who helped organized this effort along with Asian Media Watch. He certainly wasn’t at any of the planning meetings or any other media reform gathering.

In addition to all this, let’s go back into time when the Turn Back the Radio efforts were underway and we had all these FCC hearings about how many stations Radio station owners could have in a market, you did not see or hear Sharpton raising this issue. You certainly didn’t see him at too many of the hearings. I know because we covered most of them on our airwaves at Pacifica and I spoke at three of them. (Monteray, Seattle and San Francisco)

So what’s this all about? Why is Sharpton jumping in at the 12th hour? Is it because this is the hot topic of the day and he wants to be a part of it? Maybe… Maybe not. The media reform and media justice argument has been around for the past 3 years and have been hot topics. He could’ve ran to the bank with this during his Presidential campaign. But he didn’t. He certainly never had any of the main Hip Hop activists who have been dealing with this from day one come on his Sunday night 3 hour radio show on WLIB which is now home to Air America. We spoke with Bob Law who let us know that not once did Sharpton ever help out with the widespread efforts behind this campaign.

So what’s the motive behind Sharpton suddenly wanting to write the FCC and call for a ban on gangsta rap? Well, he’s seems to be redirecting the argument back to the artists and away from the media owners and executives who are really responsible for giving them air time.

Jeff Smulyan CEO of Emmis

Jeff Smulyan CEO of Emmis

In the NY Daily news article, you don’t see him calling them into question the role Jeff Smulyan, Rick Cummings and Barry Mayo who are executives at Emmis. You don’t see him calling for a meeting with John Hogan, Steve Smith or Doc Winters who are key executives at Clear Channel. You don’t see him calling on Cathy Hughes or Alfred Liggins or Mary Catherine Sneed (MC Sneed) who run things at Radio One. He covers his steps by saying, he doesn’t wanna mediate between the artists and that this is a recurring problem, but he stops short of placing blame where it really belongs on the owners of these outlets. Many of them not only grant platforms to these artists but they also grant platforms to other activities that help promote beef like the infamous Smackfest where they have sistas from around the way smack each other for cash prizes. Everyone knows this hence the protests and objections over the past three years.

This is important to note, because folks who have been organizing around media reform are very clear that artists like 50 Cent and Game have to own up to the role they play in these conflicts, but this is bigger then them. This goes back to those who have final say so as to what gets aired and how they ultimately profit off of these divisions. So now we have Sharpton who has good working relationships with Kathy Hughes at Radio One and Barry Mayo the General Manager at Hot 97 coming to the rescue.

Sharpton was strangely silent and didn’t shoot off letters to the FCC a few weeks ago when members of Game’s entourage brutally beat a deejay (Xzulu) and hospitalized him after an interview they conducted on Radio One’s WYKS in DC. He never asked for a 90 day ban when Radio One banned and then un-banned the Game’s record from being played on the air. Industry insiders are wondering if pay for play tactics were behind that move.

Many see Sharpton’s involvement as a subtle but soon to not be so subtle smoke screen to protect the attacks on his media buddies at these outlets. Today he’s calling for ban. Tomorrow he’ll start focusing on the artists and will do all that he can to downplay the role and responsibility of this executive friends at these stations. Who knows perhaps they will even grant him a weekly show so he can air out these important issues.

My point being is that what sort of ‘off the record’ conversations has Sharpton been having with these folks that he has not been able to come forth and say something like ‘I just got off the phone with Radio One and they agreed to do a 90 day ban, or I just spoke to Barry Mayo and convinced him to do an on air truce and dedicate a day to conflict resolution which is what Pittsburgh radio station WAMO did the other day. ‘.

One would hope and suspect that Sharpton had these conversations with them before making his announcement about going to the FCC. One has to wonder what’s really going on? Did he speak to them and they told him ‘No Way’? I find this hard to believe.

In the words of Public Enemy.. ‘Don’t Believe the Hype’ and ‘Can’t Truss It’ cause we aren’t.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4Yv1ay0CmM

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Rev. Al airs gangsta ban plan

BY TRACY CONNOR and BILL HUTCHINSON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

The Rev. Al Sharpton

The Rev. Al Sharpton is calling for a 90-day ban on radio and TV airplay for any performer who uses violence to settle scores or hype albums.

“There has to be a way to step in and regulate what’s going on with the airwaves and with violence,” Sharpton told the Daily News yesterday. “The airwaves are being used to romanticize urban violence.”

The activist minister plans to ask the Federal Communications Commission and the country’s major radio broadcasters to back his proposal.

His call follows last week’s shooting outside Hot 97 radio’s SoHo studios that apparently was sparked by a feud between rappers 50 Cent and The Game.

A member of The Game’s entourage, Kevin Reed, 23, of Compton, Calif., was shot in the buttocks after 50 Cent bad-mouthed The Game during an on-air interview at the radio station.

Bad blood between 50 Cent and The Game continued to boil over the weekend when The Game challenged his former mentor to “Come get me, you little bitch!” during a concert in Long Beach, Calif.

Last night, 50 Cent was escorted through LaGuardia Airport by Port Authority cops “for his own protection” when he arrived on a plane from Detroit about 8 p.m., a Port Authority spokesman said.

Said Sharpton, “We may not be able to stop people from shooting, but we can stop people from profiting from the violence.” Sharpton declined to comment specifically on the beef between 50 Cent, who was born Curtis Jackson, and The Game, whose real name is Jayceon Taylor.

Sharpton said he has no intention of trying to broker peace between the two rap stars, who have both recently released top-selling CDs.

“You can’t deal with this on an artist-by-artist basis,” he said. “I’m not going to become a mediator between artists. This is a recurring problem.”

In a letter Sharpton plans to send to the FCC and broadcasters, he said the outcry against violence among entertainers should be just as loud as the response last year to Janet Jackson’s breast-baring Super Bowl stunt.

“I recall the outrage that the FCC and others displayed in response to the Super Bowl performance of Janet Jackson,” Sharpton wrote. “Yet, when acts of violence happen around radio stations that actually have caused bloodshed, there has been a strange and disturbing silence from all quarters.”

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/40700.htm

HOT97

An on-air personality at one of Hot 97’s sister stations says he was booted off the air after complaining about a song that features the lyric “Beat that bitch with a bat.”

Paul Porter said his falling-out with KISS-FM came after being told by the embattled hip-hop outlet, “Make up your mind: Do you want to stand up for kids or the company?”

The freelance announcer, who is also a volunteer instructor at a public school in Queens, told The Post that he voiced his concern last year after a 12-year-old student asked him, “Why does Hot 97 play these records?”

The offending song, “Party and Bulls- – -” by rap artist Rah Digger, was a favorite of the little girl’s father – who had recently beaten her mother, Porter said.

“I was shocked that a sixth-grader was so aware, but saddened that I had no answer,” said Porter.

Although the announcer’s complaint led to a new zero-tolerance policy for on-air profanity, Hot 97 just five months later launched a violent on-air contest called “Smackfest.”

That’s where young women compete for a $500 prize by striking one another in the face, not only to try and produce the loudest slap but do the most physical damage – including drawing blood.

These revelations come less than a week after an associate of rapper The Game was shot outside Hot 97’s Manhattan studio by a man believed to be an associate of rival rapper 50 Cent, while “Fitty” was inside promoting his new album.

50 Cent had just said on the air that he was ejecting The Game, a former protégé, from his posse.

Six weeks earlier, the station came under fire for playing “The Tsunami Song,” a twisted “We Are the World” parody mocking victims of the natural disaster that killed more than 200,000 people.

Porter says the Hot 97 DJs told him soon after the shooting that the controversies stem from programming director John Dimick’s inexperience with hip-hop.

Emmis Communications, the parent of Hot 97 and KISS-FM, hired Dimick in November from Jefferson-Pilot Communications in San Diego, where he oversaw country, jazz and alternative-rock stations.

“It’s been a zoo up there since Dimick took over. He doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Porter says one DJ told him.