Free La Kalle 10/26/2006

Nas flipped out on the Deja Vu show on Power 105.1, with accusations claiming that executives at rival station Hot 97 and radio personalities like DJ’s Funk Master Flex, Clue, Angie Martinez and a few others took pay for play proceeds under the table. Shortly after the incident Nas apologized and went on to say that the accusations were false and that he was just mad. Really? Not because he had just dropped an album and Jigga owned his sweet azz? Ok!

Nas: “You see it’s a whole evil empire funded by a bunch of other evil empires with Def Jam being one of them who are giving them money to play all their artists records. Meanwhile the struggling artists have to recreate records that sound like Jay-Z and they’re destroying themselves.”

Many up and coming latino artists in New York City, Chicago, Houston, L.A. and Miami were pleased when Univision decided on a programming change from the traditional latin mix to 100% reggeton and latin hip hop music 24 hours a day 7 days a week. This meant more opportunity to be heard; now the “streets” had their own radio station. Boy were you all fooled! Not everyone was going to be heard on the airwaves of the new stations. In New York City’s “La Kalle” ( newbees, don’t even THINK about “La Mega”) it is obvious that no music by artists who are not of Puerto Rican origin (that means born IN Puerto Rico or one of the azz cheeks that Casanova kisses) is played on the station and that has a few listeners and artists mad. So mad that one rapper, Temperamento from Providence, RI (Puerto Rican) took it so far as to dedicate a song to DJ Casanova talking about his favoritism to the “select few” and taking payola. One underground campaign slogan is “How Much Pay for Play/Cuanto Pago por Radio?” The movement claims that many New York, L.A and Miami radio stations are still using black market under the table tactics to play independent music charging as much as $10,000.00 for one month of rotation with no promise of making it a hit. For a lot of new artists this is more than half of the marketing and promotion budget for their entire project.

But what about Lune y Tune? They’re Dominican and they made Reggeton what it is today?

What ABOUT Lune y Tune? They’re Dominican’s with Puerto Rican accents that live and were raised in Puerto Rico. Yeah you’ll find a few jock ridding Tio Tomas’ (Spanish Uncle Tom’s) running around in the back ground reppin other nationalities at the radio station but at the end of their shout outs and reppin it’s back to Puertorro. I am willing to bet my left testicle that most of these “Puerto Ricans” started going to P.R. and being “Puerto Rican” as soon as the movement began to blow. (Hint, Hint: N.O.R.E. and Fat Joe, who by the way is half Cuban but doesn’t mention it because it seems more beneficial financially to be Boricua).

What about Pit Bull?

WHAT ABOUT Pit bull? Lil’ John did the Hip Hop Remix to “Gasolina” and they are giving Daddy Yankee all they can for his money (Hint!).

What about EL GENERAL or LEDESMA?

Who….?

Back in the Latino Mix day’s the station (La Kalle in NYC) played a wider array of music: Salsa, Rock, Merengue, Bachata and a little bit of what was Latin Rap and a smidge of Reggeton. No one was mad every latino-genre got their equal share of music. Now that it’s Reggeton 24-7 only music from Puerto Rico is played. How many times have you heard Don Miguelo’s “La Motora” on the station? And that song was HOT and Reggeton!!! That song ruled DR spring & summer of ‘05. Oh right he’s not Puerto Rican. It’s either that or he can’t come up with the payola that it take to spin the hell out of their songs.

Payola began in the 1950s and it is still rampant today. New York’s hyperactive attorney-general, Eliot Spitzer, said that bribes are pervasive in the industry, and that he is continuing his investigation into the other big record labels-Universal, EMI and Warner Music-as well as the radio business.

The radio industry, after all, is just as much to blame for payola. Employees at Clear Channel, America’s biggest radio company, crop up frequently in the incriminating e-mails that Mr. Spitzer published. The bribes they received came in the form of electronic goods, free airline tickets and hotels, sneakers and musical instruments and equipment. Some of the methods its labels used were quite basic, such as hiring girls to call in posing as listeners with requests for songs.

Why not call it: “La Kalle De Puerto Rico” and make Casanova the crossing guard? That way no one expects nothing and gets nothing. More than 50% of Reggeton’s original audience was based in the Dominican Republic and still is to this day and in the US it’s and even higher percentage. Can this be, in 2006, racism amongst us spics? No. In the “Llame Pa Verte” video by Wisin y Yandel they only rep two flags, Puerto Rico and The Dominican Republic and Tego, Yankee & Omar stay reppin DR. I mean the “tigueraje” is thick in “El Patio” so of course you won’t dis the originators of it.

So why is it so different in the NY?

It’s because everyone waters down and the roots and the big money begin to run under different trees. This goes to show how much talent there is out there from Mexico, Panama (the Mother of This Spanish Rap Game), Dominican Republic, Cuba, Spain and none of it airs. So we’re forced to listen to the same monotonous crap. How much longer will listeners have to listen to music that is picked for them by the highest bidder and then like sheep go out and buy it because we’re being brain washed in to thinking that we actually like the music. We are creatures of habit so it’s easy to fall in to a routine with anything that has a repeated effect on any one of our five censes. Sorry peeps free radio is dead time to hit the net!!!