How Hip Hop Became Hit Pop: Radio, Rap, and RaceA free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. How Hip Hop Became Hit Pop examines the programming practices at commercial radio stations in the 1980s and early 1990s to uncover how the radio industry facilitated hip hop's introduction into the musical mainstream. Constructed primarily by the Top 40 radio format, the musical mainstream featured mostly white artists for mostly white audiences. With the introduction of hip hop to these programs, the radio industry was fundamentally altered, as stations struggled to incorporate the genre's diverse audience. At the same time, as artists negotiated expanding audiences and industry pressure to make songs fit within the confines of radio formats, the sound of hip hop changed. Drawing from archival research, Amy Coddington shows how the racial structuring of the radio industry influenced the way hip hop was sold to the American public, and how the genre's growing popularity transformed ideas about who constitutes the mainstream. The author gratefully acknowledges the AMS 75 PAYS Fund of the American Musicological Society, supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. |
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Adult Contemporary Adult Top 40 advertising airplay album American Angeles appeal Arbitron ballads Beat Billboard Hot 100 Black artists Black audiences Black Music Black Radio Exclusive Black-Oriented radio Black-Oriented stations broadcast chart claimed commercial radio Cool crossover music Crossover stations Culture dance December Def Jam demographic disco diverse freestyle genre Hip Hop hip hop culture Hispanic jack swing Jeff Joel Denver KPWR Latinos major labels Media Michael Milli Vanilli music industries percent play rap playlists politics Popular Music Power quoted Race Radio & Records radio formats radio industry radio programmers radio stations rap music rap songs rap's rapped vocals rappers record companies Rhythm Rock 40 Sean Ross September songs with rapped sonic sound style subformats target teens Top 40 format Top 40 programmers Top 40 radio Top 40 stations University Press up-tempo Urban stations Walt Love WBLS Weisbard white audiences Whodini York