Who Really Runs the Show @Hot 97?

By now, the latest Hot 97 fiasco is already old news.  The station’s annual Summer Jam occurred, stupidity ensued, Chuck D took to Twitter to express his disgust with Hot 97′s misrepresentation of Hip Hop, and the station’s morning hosts, Ebro and Rosenberg, proceeded to insult Chuck by questioning his position and relevance in Hip Hop.  Rosenberg, self-proclaimed champion of Hip Hop had the audacity to say, “No one elected you president of Hip Hop. What are you doing to support this culture besides tweeting confusing messages in a 140 characters or less?

Hey Rosenberg, did you attend Chuck’s successful 2012 Hip Hop Gods tour that stations like Hot 97 never even promoted? Does that count as “supporting this culture”? Are you aware of everything that Chuck is working on or are you just a little out of sync with what’s going on outside of your station’s commercial rap world?

Message to Rosenberg and company: Hip Hop has its leaders and authority figures who have been appointed as such by virtue of their years in the culture, iconic status, commitment, and on-going contributions to Hip Hop. Only a fool would think otherwise.

But Rosenberg, Ebro, and the rest of the station’s staff are but a small part of the problem. Behind Hot 97′s lackeys stands Emmis Broadcasting, a company which owns various stations across the United States, including Hot 97 and Power 106 in Los Angeles. Both ranked as the world’s top “Hip Hop” radio stations, these two networks were launched by Rick Cummings, Emmis’ current President of Radio Programming.  Although he isn’t responsible for each and every song played on these stations, he’s undoubtedly the big dog programmer who Hot 97 and Power 106 program directors have to answer to.

Cummings, along with his colleagues, is the person who allows the N word, sex, violence, misogyny, drugs, and general disrespect of Black people to be promoted and glorified on his airwaves and events. He’s the guy who profits off the marketing of “entertainment” that celebrates dysfunction and ignorance. He’s the type of person who can remain virtually invisible and dodge any and all accountability because he has loyal worker bees who gladly defend the station’s agenda, no matter how destructive it is. He’s the type of cat who presents himself as a respectable professional while everything he promotes is far from respectable and professional behavior. He’s a culture vulture who makes it his business to exploit something he would never personally associate with if it wasn’t for the paycheck that comes with it.