Following Hot 97’s Summer Jam 2014 “fiasco,” Chuck D is cooking up a plan to change the face of urban radio. Question is: will the morals of the Hip-Hop vet cause him to become public enemy number one?
Via Billboard:
“My goal by year’s end is to change the face and sound of urban radio,” D promised. “I’ve been in this shit 30 years, too long to just sit and let it be. I’m not going to be the grim reaper. I don’t want to be the grim reaper. But people have to stand up and we need some change, and it’s time.”
This year’s Hot 97 Summer Jam featured performances by Nas, 50 Cent, Childish Gambino, Iggy Azalea, the Roots, Nick Minaj, Wiz Khalifa and many more. D says he was particularly disturbed that the use of the N-word was so readily tolerated by the station and festival organizers.
“That shit is over,” he noted. “If there was a festival and it was filled with anti-Semitic slurs… or racial slurs at anyone but black people, what do you think would happen? Why does there have to be such a double standard?”
Never one to bite his tongue, Chuck D said radio, particularly a station like Hot 97, needs to put on “greater representation” of the Hip-Hop culture and its community, without excluding non-Black artists. He added that he will continue to voice his opinions and concerns via written commentary and his personal site over at Rapstation.com.
We want to know your thoughts on D and his view on the current state of Hip-Hop. Chime in at the bottom.
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Photo: WENN
