I saw and Read This on RADIOFACTS.COM I dont Know Who Posted this Dumbsht.....about the new Performance Rights Tax Urban Radio is crying over....

Performance Rights: Radio is Just not Responsible for Deals Artists Make This entry was posted on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 at 6:14 AM and is filed under radio facts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

I started in the industry as a singer and I used radio to get a deal. I was so green, I thought talent was all you needed (laugh). I was working in Columbus, GA at WFXE and I had a good taste by that time how fast artists came and went. Maybe I didn’t really want to be a singer. Perhaps the mistake I made was using radio as a way to get a deal. As the years went on and deals were given to groups with absolutely no talent I realized the industry was not what I thought it was. All I had to do was go through the library of albums back then at the station to see how many groups had such incredibly short lifespans. There are literally thousands of singers and groups, many very good, who never made it past that first album or even a single as their products were shelved. Then there were the others who headlined for years, some decades.

I’ve been getting email about more artists joining the Performance Tax fight for the artists to be paid and I have yet to see any current R&B or Rap artists take a stand on the issue. Without question many early artists were just so excited to have a deal they didn’t do their diligence to ensure they were getting the best possible deal. Many found out when it was too late. Most of the artists who are asking to be paid are those who haven’t had a deal in years, some decades. Martha Reeves, Dionne Warwick? The last time I saw Warwick on TV, her voice was not the same, decades of smoking has taken a great toll on her voice. Nevertheless, she’s got to be close to or just past 70. She was a star for 3 solid decades, the 60s, 70s and 80s. I don’t know what her current financial status is but that’s a helluva run in the industry as an artist. she had to make quite a bit of money in that time. Martha Reeves on the other hand and a majority of the Motown artists sans Diana Ross (Berry’s girlfriend) and Smokey Robinson (Berry’s right hand man) have complained for decades that Berry Gordy did not give them royalties or pay them their fair share. Then there’s a whole crew of artists from the 90s, many of whom live in Atlanta, begging for a second chance in what is often a one shot industry. Some are so desperate they have turned to crime, drugs, alcohol and more. The artists who used to walk the streets of LA have moved south and are now walking the streets of Atlanta in higher numbers. On any given week, you will see former stars like Jennifer Holiday walking up and down Peachtree street in Atlanta, she still works but it’s unfortunate the generations before the Beyonce’s and Jay Z’s didn’t take TRUE advantage of their 15 minutes and create other opportunities for themselves.

Why does radio have to take responsibility for that now after giving these previous unknowns a platform to be heard. If you asked the artists if they would rather be paid a performance tax instead of getting a percentage of record sales or concert appearances, I doubt any of them would have opted for the Performance Tax.

OH WELL ......MY RESPONSE

Urban in radio sense means you can play black people all day and night, directed towards black people with very little or no black ownership or black sales staff to sell to white people or direct itself equally with its or other white corporations. Urban also means that the accoutability is to the corporation rather than its listening constituency. Totally a flip of what affirmative activity in the 60s fought for equal voice and opportunity for black people and businesses in their immediate locale. Know your history.

Radio is radio and Artistry is artistry. Simple as that. I would say that ALL business is NOT good business regardless of its financial upswing. Slavery was probably the most successful BUSINESS in the history of Amerikkka, very little overhead. Didn't PAY their people. It was a benefit for many whites in Amerikkka at the expense of black backs. There's a lot to say about the culture today, but it has to come through the portals that we know called Tv and radio. Regardless of how much rolls through alternate media( HI END -internet , LOW END-Print) people of color are stuck on radio and tv, which has been the seed of failure within the black community here and abroad. BET has long been a cancer of black mindset. Its the common denominator of communication and robotic plight across the nation and the earth. How do you think Africans are calling themselves 'nigger' ?. The art , yes, but the transmission and acceptance of it has been world deplorable to the image of U.S.A. black folk.

Black artists want a deal like kids want a toy. This is unfortunate. But this person who says that about Dionne Warwick, Martha Reeves and other Atlanta artists walking the streets, is not only short on understanding but even shorter on knowledge of what this business really is. Black music has rarely been controlled by black people or the black community, at any time. Yes, there are thousands of recording artists and film stars that didn't take advantage of their 15 minutes. Perhaps the industry is the wrong reason to love the art of music. JAY Z and Beyonce existence with it has been evolutionary not revolutionary. They both DON'T happen without the sacrifice from the past. I have been very fortunate to continue to tour 66 tours in the 65 countries on the planet to this very day because of not just the planning of getting out of this 'black hole ' mentality of the US, BUT to ride on those same international roads made by jazz and black artists of yesteryear. I know better and i'm thankful. I had to follow the Beatles and Metallica to understand that it doesn't matter what an urban profile is to longevity. They are present living or dead...regardless to what we think or feel.....in America.

Now about the radio part. Before 1948 black people were barely heard on ANY radio. WDIA in Memphis was a failing country station before the white management reconfigured that they can flip the station to reflect the appetite of the black Memphis metro area, to stay afloat. Thats 3 states right there. The job was to reflect. The jocks had to have an accountability to lead as well as guide was was going on in a place called 'home'. The hood. I encourage black radio DJs to learn their 'jock' history. DJs in the past that had the skills to play the music, talk the talk, serve the community and thus walk the walk, Jack The Rapper Gibson and Rufus Thomas to name a couple of men I had the utmost pleasure of meeting. To compare the 'urban DJs today to them is a crime, but those radio legends had a ball in building up black music and the artists that that person(s) considered a 15 minute look. It was the best the time had to offer. Anybody that really 'knows' the ownership and state of 'urban radio ,know that its more about the check than the community communication at hand here. Asking for those folk to respect their history, is like asking them to identify the faces on the money they swear to ,which is akin to a pig separating what food is eaten in a slop.

While I've for years I had told record companies to tone down that 'starsht' from their artists to those needed service areas, I had witnessed that the radio situation also swelled with a stink attitude. When mainly white corporations bought the companies the artists begged for that 'sugar daddy'. The radio stations went from AM to FM , from black to urban and did the same damn thing. In this time artists 'blinged and showed off to the black community, and 'urban radio 'dictated' to it from fiscal orders from their corporate masters. Al Green made Love And Happiness in the 70s with Willie Mitchell on Hi Records in Memphis. Based on the inability of dumbed down, less talk, more music, cant identify the name of the record, Urban DJs today maybe somebody should make 'Hate and Laziness' as a theme song .

Now to the question of 'why does radio have to take responsibility for that now after giving these previous unknowns a platform to be heard?'

Because the airwaves belong to the community not companies who have the financial positioning to dictate how much to suck from its listened masses. These stations need to support their local black artists ( and those small record companies in the community that want the same chance as those big white companies everybody seems to love for little reason ), if they're gonna play black music, and broadcast to black people. Make more unknown artists 'known' from the Indianapolis's, Kansas City's, Dallas's, Cleveland's, etc instead of only playing artists with corporate deals from New York and Los Angeles where they sit their pimp asses. In that case if this term 'urban' means to pimp the hood and suck the goods then they should no doubt be accountable to the Performance Tax and many others down the pike in the future of U.S. radio. Guaranteed, if these stations lock into the 'homegrown local activity' of its artists, there will be some revenue streams that form from this.

But will it feed the greed?........

Chuck D chuckd@publicenemy.com