96.3 bugs the living crap out of me.
It’s one of ten stations I rotate through on my dial, and though I’m fine with the music most of the time, I’m really sick of hearing them say “Today’s music without the rap.” They drill it, over and over, two or three times in a commercial break, and the kicker for me was the other day when they said “Here’s another song that you won’t hear on the rap station.”
WTF?
What crossover do their listeners have with those who listen to rap? Not R&B, Not Hip Hop, but rap. What stations are out there that play rap, and what is their demographic? Devil’s advocate says that 89x plays some songs with whiteboy rap, but that is really rare these days (except “Bleed it out”, which has suddenly caught fire).
My point is, can you reasonably say that they are pointing out that they don’t play rap because they are competing with a rap station, and hope to draw those listeners?
I don’t think so. I think they’re appealing to the “whiteness” of their audience, and laying out a not-so-subtle racist overtone in the process.
One could argue that it’s a lifestyle issue, but I think there are hundreds of ways to structure that tag-line that doesn’t sound offensive to me. I’d be willing to accept that it’s more “classist” than racist, except I think the suburban middle class demographic they’re reaching for uses class as a way of covering race. It’s easy, here in Detroit, where you can trash-talk the entire city and pretend it’s a city vs suburb thing.
And frankly, I’m a white guy who occasionally listens to their station, and I don’t like most rap. … but I do like Queen Latifah, old Fresh Prince, and other artists that do more than smack some gang talk over a drum track. They’re alienating me with their implication that I shouldn’t like rap if I listen to their music AND by even bringing it up, because the crossover of interest between those types of music is pretty small, which points to another motivation entirely.
I’ve been threatening to write this post for months, and seeing that it’s Blogging Against Racism Week made me willing to put up with the devil’s advocating I expect to see forthwith, so fire away, folks. ;) My core thought is that making your tagline “Music without the rap” when you aren’t competing for audience with the rap station is disingenuous and fucking irritating. Go!
EDIT:
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