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After breaking through to mainstream pop-culture awareness in 2006, the Bay Area's youthful, party-oriented hyphy movement seemed poised to become the next big thing. Fueled by cannabis, thizz pills, and top-shelf tequila, hyphy's uptempo, feverish sound put a psychedelic tint on turf rap. "Go dumb" became the rallying cry for an attention-deficit culture that spread like wildfire, taking over clubs and commercial radio. As silly as it seemed to outsiders, hyphy created an economy whose main selling point was regional pride, built around stunna shades, Bay Area–themed T-shirts, rims, mixtapes, and Mac Dre bobblehead dolls. Despite its ghetto origins, hyphy had surprising suburban appeal. Rebellious, rambunctious, and not a little subversive, its infectious energy was a shot in the arm to a moribund rap industry.

The Bay Area's answer to Atlanta's crunk, hyphy validated the efforts of the independent-label-saturated local scene, which had long struggled to gain a national toehold. Media coverage extended to such nontraditional rap outlets as NPR, Newsweek, and The New York Times. Hyphy's potential seemed limitless; once it hit middle America, there was no telling what it might do.

Yet by last summer, it had all but disappeared from the music industry's collective radar screens.

Many factors may have contributed to hyphy's demise. Contractual snafus and bad business practices by some artists resulted in missed opportunities; major labels signed local artists, then delayed releasing their albums. National media made a big fuss over the controversial practice of "ghost-riding the whip" (putting a car in neutral and dancing on its hood or roof while the vehicle kept rolling). Additionally, hyphy was frequently linked to illegal sideshows, and there were reports of violence at concerts and clubs. Subsequently, overall sales figures never quite caught up with the hype.

Even so, the largest single factor in hyphy's decline may have been the withdrawal of support for local music by KMEL 106.1FM, the Bay Area's top urban radio station and a powerful industry tastemaker.

A year and a half ago, it wasn't uncommon to find at least four or five songs by locally based indie rap artists in rotation at the San Francisco–based station. These days, however, you won't find a current local rap release in KMEL's top 50, or its top 100 for that matter. In fact, the highest-ranking recent single by a Bay Area rap artist the week of February 4 was the Federation's "Happy I Met You," way back at number 187.

At present, KMEL is playing "a lot of Down South music ... anything but the Bay," according to Hannah Wagner, a publicist at SF indie digital music label INgrooves and a regular listener.

Author Jeff Chang, who has written extensively about commercial radio, feels the station has returned to standard programming: "You don't hear a lot of [new] music breaking. You didn't get a sense of excitement like you had a couple of years ago. It's gone back."

A closer look into the absence of hyphy from the airwaves found that while local artists bear a degree of responsibility for the decline of the homegrown art form, KMEL is far from blameless.

Specifically, the station

• yanked local rappers with buzzworthy records from rotation over petty personal beefs

• made it difficult, if not impossible, for artists not aligned with favored promoters to get access to station personnel

• ignored the advice of its own DJs on potential hit records by local artists

• put the kibosh on efforts to spread hyphy in other regions

• engaged in blatant favoritism toward certain artists, alongside other activities that contributed to the fragmentation of the local hip-hop community

• employed a two-tiered promotion system for major-label and independent acts

KMEL's provincial attitude toward local rap artists is perhaps best exemplified by the station's treatment of Mistah F.A.B., a charismatic Oaklander sometimes referred to as "hyphy's crown prince." According to F.A.B., a "personal situation" with current music director Big Von Johnson has existed for years. The rapper speculates that jealousy might be the cause: "Von wanted to be an artist." Still, "It's no bad blood, it's no hatred from me," he now emphasizes. (At press time, Johnson hadn't responded to several requests for an interview.)

In 2005, the hyphy phenomenon was beginning to create a tangible buzz, and F.A.B. had the hottest song in the streets in "Super Sic wit It." When it was initially played on KMEL, presenters announced it as a new song by E-40, one of the few major-label artists from the Bay, who appeared on the record.

Yet after E-40 invited F.A.B. onstage at the 2005 KMEL Summer Jam, the audience reaction was so overwhelming that even Johnson had to give F.A.B. his props. Soon after that, other F.A.B. songs were added to the station's rotation. But his increased profile didn't last long.

In March 2006, MTV aired a segment of the show My Block that focused on the Bay Area. Though other artists were featured, F.A.B.'s charming personality nearly stole the show; he appeared to be a safe bet to be the next rapper from the region to blow up nationally. With a hot album, numerous guest appearances, and several songs on the radio, F.A.B. suddenly found himself weighing deals from major labels.

Not long after that, F.A.B. pitched Johnson with an idea for a new, locally oriented show, to be called Yellow Bus Radio. But KMEL already had a similar show in E-40's E-Feezy Radio, so F.A.B. took the concept to Jazzy Jim Archer, the program director at KYLD-FM (94.9) — located in the same building as KMEL. Archer green-lighted the show, which aired directly opposite Johnson's on KMEL.

That, F.A.B. says, "really made it seem I was going after [Johnson's] timeslot. I became his archenemy."

By all accounts, Yellow Bus Radio was a success. The program garnered high ratings on KYLD and was syndicated by other stations across California and podcast by Web sites worldwide. In addition to playing his own music alongside songs by lower-profile locals, F.A.B. used his airtime as a vehicle for community interaction, conducting interviews, and, in keeping with hyphy's special-education theme, reading book reports.

"I don't necessarily want to use the word 'movement,'" F.A.B. says, "but we actually started a big deal with Yellow Bus Radio, which was to give people a chance and an opportunity." However, he adds, "I didn't know it would stir up that much controversy."

The show's run ended because of the rapper's busy tour schedule and because, Archer says, it was "causing F.A.B. some problems in other areas of his career."

In retaliation for F.A.B.'s perceived disloyalty, sources say, someone at KMEL apparently deleted all of his music from the playlist; in addition, his verses began to be omitted from songs by other artists he had appeared on. "Once I started noticing that, I was like, 'Goddamn,'" the rapper says. "That's what made it look like it was an individualized effort to stop me."

F.A.B. loudly blamed Johnson for the deletion of his music from KMEL. "I was real bitter about it," he says now. "There might have been some things said out of spite."

Without hometown radio trumpeting his buzzworthiness, F.A.B. says, major labels started to get cold feet. Atlantic eventually signed him in late 2006, but being persona non grata at KMEL "affected what their whole staff would be able to do promotionally" as far as breaking him, he claims.

Being blacklisted from KMEL also affected the rapper's other major sources of income: money for "features" (appearances on other artists' songs) and concert revenue. When he traveled outside the Bay, F.A.B. says that he was often asked, "Why you ain't getting play in your own town?"

KMEL program director Stacy Cunningham confirms there was an "unofficial" ban on F.A.B., but says the station stopped playing his music not out of spite, but because he was "our competition in the ratings." She claims to have "nothing but love" for F.A.B., but advises, "Don't play the 'Cry me a river' card."

Cunningham says the station never received a copy of F.A.B.'s latest album, Da Baydestrian, adding that even after Yellow Bus Radio went off the air, "there was no real follow-up by the artist."

However, F.A.B.'s issues with KMEL may have had a domino-like effect on the entire Bay Area rap scene. Few of the artists signed to majors in hyphy's wake saw their records released, and those that did come out were often significantly delayed. "Once they canceled my airplay, it put a big halt to the movement," F.A.B. says.

According to former KMEL DJ BackSide, F.A.B.'s conflict with the station was "a very big part of why the hyphy shit stopped."

The Bay Area has long had a love/hate relationship with KMEL. At 69,000 watts, the station casts a sizable shadow over the entire region, from Santa Rosa to San Jose. For many local rap artists, the perception is that the path to commercial success goes through KMEL.

In the late 1980s and early '90s, KMEL earned a reputation for innovative programming, creating the blueprint for the "hot urban" format, a mix of hip-hop and R&B later adopted by New York's Hot 97 and Los Angeles' Power 106. Its annual all-star concert, Summer Jam, was widely copied. The station was the original home of The Wake Up Show, the first hip-hop program to be syndicated nationally. To this day, fans have fond memories of Wake Up Show exclusives like the 1995 Saafir vs. Casual battle, a defining moment in Bay Area hip-hop. KMEL is often credited with being the first commercial station to play the likes of Too $hort, MC Hammer, Digital Underground, Tony! Toni! Toné!, En Vogue, Tupac Shakur, E-40, Souls of Mischief, the Luniz, Mac Mall, Goapele, and the Federation.

Unfortunately, the station hasn't always supported local artists. Following a backstage altercation at the 1995 Summer Jam, Too $hort was temporarily banned from the airwaves, as was Tupac just before his death in 1996 ("At least I'm in good company," F.A.B. jokes).

In 1996, KMEL's parent company, Evergreen, was purchased by Chancellor Media. In 1999, amid an industrywide consolidation trend, Chancellor's Bay Area stations were bought by Texas-based media conglomerate Clear Channel Communications, becoming part of a national chain which at its peak had more than 1,200 stations, including several in the Bay Area. Even before the Clear Channel takeover, KMEL's programming had become more mainstream. As former KMEL air personality Davey D recalls, "The playlist suddenly shrunk. We had to follow dictates. That was a rude awakening with respect to the local stuff."

In 2000, Michael Martin, KYLD's program director, became the overseer of both KMEL and KYLD, its sister station and onetime rival. Over the next year, Martin methodically cleaned house at KMEL, slowly but surely replacing the station's core staff, who had forged key relationships with the local hip-hop community.

In 1998, Oakland's Delinquents sold 30,000 copies of their album, Bosses Will Be Bosses. The group felt its single, "That Man," had the potential to be a big commercial hit on KMEL. "We had a current record with a current single," rapper G-Stack recalls. "We had a street buzz." The Delinquents also had decent sales figures, moving 2,000 copies a week. Despite sending their music to the station, "they still wasn't playing our stuff," he says.

Out of frustration, the Delinquents and a large number of thuggy street dudes confronted former KMEL DJs Trace and Franzen at a club one night, demanding that they receive airplay; rumor has it that someone in the group's entourage pulled a gun on one of the DJs. Urban legend or not, this incident led to a meeting at the station with the DJs and then-program director Joey Arbagey.

G-Stack remembers the meeting well: "We got up in there. They weren't trying to let us in. We told them, 'It ain't gon' be okay to ride your vans through the 'hood.'"

Faced with the threat of retaliation against its marketing street team, KMEL grudgingly conceded a modicum of airplay to the Delinquents. But by then, their album had been out for six months, and the group's momentum fizzled. "We never really had that radio support again," G-Stack says.

The Delinquents' experience wasn't uncommon. In a 2001 interview, E-40 wondered aloud about KMEL, "If you're 'the people's station,' why aren't you playing the people's music?" And in 2003, producer EA-Ski complained that other regional scenes benefited from radio play: "Everybody else is supporting their music, but KMEL isn't doing it."

Rappers haven't been the only ones upset with KMEL. Over the years, community activists have frequently targeted the station. One flashpoint came when Davey D, host of the popular public affairs show Street Knowledge, was fired three weeks after the 9/11 attacks when he hosted interviews with Rep. Barbara Lee and Boots Riley of the Coup that ran afoul of Clear Channel's pro-Bush agenda.

In 2002, Malkia Cyril, executive director of Youth Media Council, formed the Community Coalition for Media Accountability, which studied KMEL's social impact on young people in the Bay Area. Cyril says the station allowed local artists little airtime, and promoted music that tended to criminalize its primary listeners: young people of color.

In January 2003, the coalition met with Johnson, then-community affairs director Cunningham, and a Clear Channel executive who flew in from Texas, to discuss their concerns. Cyril says KMEL didn't share the view that the station should be a public resource: "Big Von's stance was — I'll never forget him saying this — 'This is my radio station.'"

Possibly as a result of the public pressure, KMEL added "Closer," a jazz-tinged R&B single by then-unsigned Oakland singer Goapele, to its playlist. The song ended up being the most-played song on KMEL that year.

"Closer" may well have opened the station's eyes to the fact that there were local records out there that could compete with national hits. Still, KMEL resisted opening up its playlist – until its hand was forced by the emergence of an unlikely rival that threatened its market dominance.

In April 2004, Power 92 (92.7 FM), an upstart station that branded itself "The Beat of the Bay," began its existence by playing 48 straight hours of Tupac Shakur. Its playlist quickly evolved into a locally oriented version of the "hot urban" format. For perhaps the first time, KMEL was suddenly faced with real competition.

The battle for supremacy of the airwaves and the loyalty of the 18–34 urban listening bloc set the stage for what became known as the hyphy movement. Practically overnight, the radio was flooded with local rap music. If, prior to Power 92's arrival, one or two Bay Area rap groups at a time broke through to KMEL's or KYLD's rotation, listeners now had a choice of hearing their music on three stations.

Though owned by the same company, KMEL and KYLD catered to slightly different demographics: KYLD skewed younger and more Hispanic, while KMEL's core audience is older and more African American. By targeting the same demographic as KMEL, Power 92 represented a viable threat to the station's hegemony. Once Power 92 emerged, artists could leverage their radio play by deciding to which station they would first take their music.

KMEL responded to Power 92 with what Davey D characterizes as a "corporate thuggin' mentality." He says labels, artists, and advertisers were allegedly told in no uncertain terms not to do business with Power 92. The new station's street teams were harassed by what the East Bay Express called "Clear Channel shock troops," who piled out of KMEL- and WYLD-branded vans and slapped bumper stickers advertising their stations on Power's vehicles.

DJ BackSide had been a Power 92 street team member for just a week when she was offered a slot on KMEL. In July 2004, she started hosting The Hot Spot, a late-Friday, early-Saturday show. It quickly found an audience among hyphyites eager to keep their buzz going as they headed home after a night of clubbing.

BackSide rapidly became one of hyphy's most visible proponents. In addition to her KMEL show, she hosted an online show at Warner Brothers-sponsored Web site www.hyphymovement.com; produced mixtapes hosted by such luminaries as Too $hort, San Quinn, and E-40; sold her own "Got Bay?" T-shirts; held residencies at non-KMEL-promoted clubs; and received exposure from national outlets like BET. There was a perception, she says, among longtime KMEL staffers that she was doing too much.

BackSide soon found herself an outsider among KMEL's predominantly male DJ roster. She says she experienced some resentment because she was new and because she had come over from Power 92 (which has since changed owners and become LGBT-friendly dance station Energy 92). Cunningham says she respected BackSide's hustle, but adds, "She was young. She didn't know how to handle situations."

BackSide alleges that certain individuals at the station did everything they could to get her fired or removed from the air, including accusing her of taking payola. On May 3, 2005, she remembers, she had just left the New York City offices of Bad Boy Records, where label owner P. Diddy thanked her personally for breaking one of his records on the air.

Not 20 minutes later, she says, she received an instant message from Scotty Fox, 3,000 miles away at KMEL. In a transcript of the conversation provided by BackSide, Fox takes an aggressive tone, accusing her of taking credit for breaking a record other KMEL DJs played on the air first. She denies it, but Fox berates her repeatedly. "U stay in your lane," he warns.

Several times, Fox invokes the name of the station's music director. "This is from Von," he says at one point. After some more back-and-forth, he curtly states, "There's nothing to talk about."

A month and a half later, BackSide was told of a letter sent to the editor of RPM (an industry trade publication) accusing her of taking payola and requesting that she not attend the Mixshow Power Summit, a high-profile conference of the nation's best radio mixers.

At first glance, the letter (which SF Weekly has reviewed, along with other documents supplied by BackSide) looks like an official document on letterhead from Clear Channel's corporate HQ in San Antonio. It claims that the DJ was under internal investigation for accepting plane flights and other forms of payola from Universal and Bad Boy.

Curiously, though, the letter is unsigned, and has no return address. Furthermore, it seems odd that an internal investigation into illegal payola by a KMEL DJ would have originated not at the station, but at its parent company's corporate offices.

After receiving a copy of the letter from RPM, BackSide says she met with Cunningham and Johnson. When asked who could have written it, BackSide gave a copy of her IM communications with Fox to Cunningham. She was then told she was suspended pending an investigation.

After consulting a lawyer, BackSide returned to the station the next day and handed a letter to the HR director detailing the conversation among her, Cunningham, and Johnson. A half-hour later, she says, Clear Channel honcho Michael Martin personally informed her that her show was reinstated, effective immediately.

From that time on, she says, she received a chilly reception at KMEL: "You could cut the tension with a knife." Johnson, she says, "wouldn't even look me in the eye."

BackSide says there was no internal investigation into the letter's authorship, although Cunningham told her the station had looked into her NYC trip and found she had paid for her own ticket. Cunningham says the station confirmed no one from the corporate office initiated any investigation: "Honestly, we don't know who sent it."

In February 2006, BackSide was fired from the station. Cunningham says the DJ didn't help her own cause by falling asleep in her car when she was supposed to be doing her show, resulting in "dead air." But BackSide says she played prerecorded music during that time, adding that she dozed off because her show was moved to 4 a.m. In any event, Cunningham says, "at that point, she knew she was not on the good side."

BackSide's departure from KMEL deprived the hyphy movement of one of its loudest supporters. By silencing her voice, the station closed a door which had allowed the artists community access to otherwise-impenetrable airwaves.

Currently living in Los Angeles, BackSide likens working at KMEL to working at a restaurant: "On the outside, it was great," she recalls. "You go into the back and it's a whole different story. Behind closed doors, [there] was a lot of stuff going on."

Much of the dissatisfaction with KMEL's support of local rap in recent years has centered on Johnson's perceived attitude toward the homegrown scene. As the public face of the station, he is in the difficult position of having to balance the corporate agenda with community needs, while his boss remains behind the scenes. "Von gets the blame because he has allowed himself to be the go-to person," says Davey D, who adds, "You're not seeing Michael Martin; you're seeing Von."

In a 2004 interview, Johnson argued that commercial radio can't placate everyone. "For the records that we do play, I could name 100 people that's still upset," he said, adding that he looks for "good records," not necessarily because an artist is from "this clique or that clique."

However, more than one local artist has found out the hard way that Johnson holds grudges for perceived slights — sometimes for years. "Big Von, he's the biggest hater there could be," says Sean Kennedy, CEO of ILL Trendz Productions, an Oakland street promotions company.

Frank Herrera, an independent promoter for several local labels, says that Johnson has done some positive things for the Bay Area, but "always seemed like he was unhappy with [local] music." Herrera claims Johnson has "played God" with artists' careers and says he often ignored the advice of DJs who advocated for local records they felt were deserving — most notably in the case of the late Mac Dre, often considered hyphy's founding father. After Herrera brought Dre's now-classic "Thizzle Dance" to the station in 2003, "his DJs had to tell him it was a requested song. Von was holding out on the record."

Herrera also says that Johnson was nowhere to be found the day he brought Dre to the station for a prescheduled interview on Johnson's show. Instead, the interview was conducted by another DJ. Although Dre's 2004 hit, "Feelin' Myself," is currently in rotation, Herrera says KMEL "really didn't start playing him until after he passed away" in late 2004.

In the July 2005 issue of Ruckus magazine, Johnson appears to take credit for breaking hyphy artists: "Name someone you knew of before I played them," he boasts.

Yet Johnson may also have held the movement back. Davey D says he was present at a meeting with prominent Los Angeles radio DJs who had been supporting Bay Area artists. During the course of the meeting, it emerged that Johnson was asked by a well-respected veteran DJ whether L.A. musicians could get some KMEL love in return. Johnson reportedly denied the request; as a result, Davey D says, L.A. stations "stopped playing a lot of that hyphy stuff, almost overnight." Reached by phone, the L.A. DJ (who asked not to be named) confirmed Von's refusal.

According to Herrera, KMEL's internal power dynamic shifted in 2005, when Jazzy Jim Archer left the station and Johnson took on a greater role in programming. "Jazzy fought for Bay Area music. I know that for a fact," Herrera says.

The week after Archer's departure, Herrera remembers going to the station and being made to wait for an hour and a half in the lobby of Clear Channel's Townsend Street office as major-label reps paraded past. Eventually, the receptionist told Herrera that Johnson was unable to see him. He asked to speak with Cunningham, who reportedly told him, "Right now we're not seeing any independent people."

"It was a new regime. Things change," Cunningham says when asked about the incident. But Herrera says other local promoters favored by Johnson were allowed access. Cunningham says the new policy allowed indie-label reps to make monthly appointments at the station, while reps from national companies were granted weekly access. "We have major-label Mondays," she explains.

A similar thing happened to Kennedy, who says he had a personal and business relationship with Johnson dating back to the mid-'90s. But in 2005, the two had a falling-out. "That's when he decided to roll with Rob Reyes," he says, referring to the San Francisco DJ whose promotional company, M1, now handles the majority of major-label accounts as well as a significant portion of indie-label accounts for the Bay Area market.

When he was tight with Johnson, Kennedy was able to come into the station and give records to DJs personally, but after their disagreement, he says he was told to drop off the records at the front desk. With his access curtailed, Kennedy says the labels hired M1 instead, "because they can get radio."

Now that he has fallen from favor with Johnson, Kennedy is willing to talk about the nature of their business dealings. Kennedy says he executive-produced five volumes of Big Von's Chop Shop mixtape series, which didn't do as well as other mixes by the Demolition Men, DJ Juice, or DJ BackSide. Kennedy says he ended up giving most of them away, but he still paid Johnson several thousand dollars per mixtape, with the unspoken understanding that Johnson would give special consideration to the label accounts Kennedy was working.

"I was coming back and giving [Johnson] money for records he never sold," Kennedy says. However, he adds, "I never just outright gave him dough and said, 'Play this record.' I should have, though."

Kennedy's account appears to contradict what Johnson told Ruckus: "If you're in the house thinking I take money, I never took a dime."

Allegations of quid pro quo and backdoor arrangements might seem titillating, but the larger point is that KMEL's machinations effectively limited station access to hand-picked local promoters and major-label employees. The end result has been a narrowing of diversity on the airwaves due to what appears to be widespread favoritism on the part of KMEL executives. This extended not only to major-label acts, but to local indies: Artists like the Team (for whom Big Von was the DJ) received considerable airplay, as did rappers with financial ties to M1, including Keak da Sneak and Kafani.

In 2005, KMEL appeared more than happy to go along for the ghost-ride. Yet both Malkia Cyril and Davey D contend the station had ulterior motives. They believe its support of local music at that time was a way to defuse activist efforts to challenge the station's FCC license (which is renewed every eight years) during the public comment period that ended in November 2005. According to Davey D, "The KMEL that played local music did so begrudgingly, under pressure."

In spring 2006, E-40's hit "Tell Me When to Go" made hyphy a national catchphrase. Davey D says KMEL responded by doing what he calls "superserving" local stuff, to the point where he started to feel that the station might be "trying to burn the audience out on the material." Intentional or not, that's just what happened.

According to Johnson, local music was outperforming national hits in 2004. Cunningham says Bay Area artists tested well in KMEL's market research as late as 2006. But by March of 2007, she claims, "they slid down." To the station, this showed that the "local stuff was no longer as relevant," she says. "Everything has a shelf life ... there's only so much hyphy you can take."

Asked why listeners aren't hearing as much local music on KMEL anymore, morning drivetime DJ Chuy Gomez remarks, "There is not a lot of hot stuff out there. ... It all starts to sound the same. Everybody wanted to sound like F.A.B. or sound like Keak. It got kinda stagnant."

Archer says KYLD began to back away from hyphy because of concerns over violence. "The culture that was developing was, unfortunately, not a healthy one," he says. Additionally, he says, KYLD's programming became more focused on "core" artists like Justin Timberlake, which made hyphy less than a perfect fit.

It may be closer to the truth to say that once KMEL's license was renewed, hyphy ultimately didn't fit Clear Channel's agenda. It's well known that commercial radio has longstanding arrangements with major labels, such as artists who perform for free at Summer Jam for "promotional considerations." By killing hyphy, the station could return to business as usual: playing national hits.

According to Cunningham, localism isn't good for commercial radio's image: "You can be a local artist and play up to where you're from, but if every song is about where you're from, there's a problem."

Ironically, she notes, San Quinn, Big Rich, and Boo Banga's "Frisco Anthem" is currently being spun on mix shows (though it appears on KMEL's playlist as "Scotty Fox's 6 O'Clock Chop Shop Mix"). In all fairness, local artists do show up frequently in mixshow airplay — which, coincidentally, happens at peak listening hours — but the artists don't get name recognition for it on that all-important industry barometer of hotness: the playlist.

Even if hyphy has run its course, a larger question remains of why hyphy artists were the only local rappers KMEL was playing. The Bay Area, after all, doesn't produce just one type of rap; nationally respected hip-hop artists like Lyrics Born, Blackalicious, and Hieroglyphics make music with socially responsible lyrics, yet were ignored by the station as hyphy scraped across the intersection of pop culture, leaving behind it a trail of empty Patrón bottles, half-smoked blunts, discarded pillboxes, and reckless-driving citations.

In a 2006 appearance at the Commonwealth Club, F.A.B. — who is clean and sober — told a sold-out house that he purposely "dumbed down" the lyrical content of his music in order to fit the popular radio formula and gain airplay. To a certain extent, the same could be said of KMEL, which stupefied the creative expression of a vibrant local culture — narrowcasting it to the point of redundancy and, ultimately, irrelevance.

To comment on the story, e-mail feedback@SFWeekly.com.

Write Your Comment show comments (55)

  1. These situations with Big Von are not coincedence. KMEL also killed a growing Bay Area independant music movements of Living Legends and Heiro when they banned Mystik Journmen from the airwaves in 1998.

    Comment by Dap1 — February 20, 2008 @ 03:30PM

  2. I hate you, I hate you, I don't even know you and I hate you. Now I'll go drink my soda that i know someone has spit in.

    Comment by m — February 20, 2008 @ 05:34PM

  3. KMEL was a pioneering station that has totally fallen off. The best thing about being in the Bay is that we appreciate music from all regions...But we love our own.

    It is hard, being on the outside to understand how hyphy died on the vine. But this article makes it much more clear. Good job!!

    I'd like to see what Von and his associates have to say in response to this.

    -Adisa Banjoko aka The Bishop of Hip-Hop

    Comment by Adisa — February 20, 2008 @ 06:06PM

  4. This article seems fairly one-sided, and not very well researched. Also, when there is an election going on, a president(yes..lower-case)with a 19% approval rate, and an economy in tatters, why are you wasting cover-space on an article about a musical genre that clearly played ITSELF out????
    A lot of the conspiracy theories put forth in this article just seem pathetic...KMEL overplayed local music to burn it out? That makes no sense. The artists involved just seem to be bitter over their own failings...and going thru Eric Arnold's past articles, does he have a financial interest in Mr. Fab? He has quite a few articles about him, and if so, he should disclose that as well.

    Comment by JaniceY — February 20, 2008 @ 06:44PM

  5. excellent article

    Comment by anonymous — February 20, 2008 @ 06:50PM

  6. Self-important drama queens and their paranoid conspiracy theories given far too much spilled ink over their infighting. Film at eleven. The only information of any substance or accuracy came from Chuy Gomez, who said it all sounded the same, with everyone trying to imitate the top two artists.

    Hyphy died because it was boring and repetitive music made by human OfficeJets. Nothing else to it.

    Comment by digable — February 20, 2008 @ 07:55PM

  7. What people can't comprehend is that Von is a hater. He wants to be an artist, a club DJ (he can't mix), on-air personality is his strength, he wants to be THEE man. He wants to be what he isn't. He has no street cred like a Mind Motion or Chuy. So... with his position he "puts" himself on a lot of things but hating or telling people he won't do this for you if a certain person is involved. People take it as an opportunity to work with Von and the other dude is cut. Scotty Fox is a nerd who's really a house dj and Von's puppet. You'll NEVER see them in public just chillin'. Hood club? NEVER. Why? They will get their ass beat and with no street cred.. hmm.. you can image. I'll agree that Bay music is slippin right now but there are non hyphy music Artists worthy or airtime: Messy Marv, Thae Jacka, G-Stack, Guce, Bavgate, PSD, Laroo Tha Hard Hitta, even Mistah F.A.B. All his music isn't hyphy. Willie Hen is part of a group called The Product with Malice & Scarface. They had a video on BET with love on southern radio, Willie Hen had a Hip-Hop quotable in The Source! and how many KMEL spins, mentions, support?? How many people knew that about Willie Hen? Come on man.... Nothing against The Team but maybe if he was the 4th Team member he'd get some love.... But they played Frontline and no one gave a fuck besides "What is it". As long as Von is there we as a whole Bay are not going to win. Lastly, one thing that was not mentioned. Once they got rid of that cornball of the year Super Snake (that slot should've been given to Short-E a long time ago. How could yall let him go to 103.5 KBMB in Sac? But within 6 months he's MD up there?? Boxx Kev is the new Short-E. Let's see how many years before he bounces somewhere and becomes MD) Von "gets" Snake's old slot & his own combined and gives Rick Lee the boot??!! Rick Lee has quietly given a lots of artists spins and helped them more than any other KMEL DJ. He went from the 5 O'Clock hour mix M-F to 30 minutes to an hour on Saturdays??? Do the math.... He really just needs his ass whipped at the very least... and it's coming.... TRUST ME

    Comment by The Mole — February 21, 2008 @ 10:02AM

  8. Wow how killed Hyphy? The last time I cheaked every body And there mom's and Dad's still Slap the Hyphy movement and thizz movement. They slap it the most out of any kind of music. the sean is more alive then the wrighter of this article thicks it is. If you did a servay on rap walking down the streets of the bay and LA were snoop dog loves or music. the nation uses or words and rep are movement ask each person in the rap sean hows there faverit underground artises and then wright about it. The resalts will tell the readers of this paper the movement is still Up and cracking Harder then most rap seans around the nation. so how killed hyphy no one but peaple how hate it and wright bad things about it making it look bad. this movment is the kind of music that gets me and alot of peaple up and have fun and be happey to lisen to. are loco artis making it big has me wrighting my own songs thinking that I could do it one day to. this is are music, And for kmel they bump it when it is needed but they need to bump it 24/7 with some dirty south music to as well. Or bays rapers or the next big thing.we got rapers out But we still have a long list rapers with difrent styles of the hyphy movement. messy marv,San Quinn,Big Rich,keak da sneak,E-40, The Pack, Mac Mall,mac dre,Andre Nickatina,traxamillion,mista FAB,yukmouth,from sac C-BO,Dubee,luni colone,all have difrent styels of the movement and many more. The peaple are still getting in to it and more talint is still comeing like myself. the undiscovered rapers are still out there with new forms of it. This movment is not deid its still on the Rize and alive. this is money from the Sco. Wrght me Back.

    Comment by Michael Uribe — February 21, 2008 @ 10:21AM

  9. SF Weekly should have known about Eric Arnold's regular miss use of quotes and bad journalism in general.

    Yea Von and KMEL is doing terrible stuff, but don't use Fab's old quotes without giving credit to where and when those quotes came from. I know that it has been months since Fab talked or even mentioned about what happened with him and KMEL.

    Also, DJ BACKSIDE??? Who is she to talk about the death of Hyphy? She was a contributor to the slaughter. She rode it then moved out of the Bay as soon as it was dead.

    She a horrible DJ, maybe that has something to do with her being let go. She made money off T-shirts.

    And as terrible Von is, he is actually a good person and definitely have the right personality to do what he has to do at KMEL. But of course, after doing something for so long... people can turn and do bad stuff.

    PS: I have heard bad interview stories about Eric directly from the source or using the wrong quotes to make a point that he wants to make.

    Comment by your bias — February 21, 2008 @ 11:15AM

  10. Truth be told Hyphy NEEDED to die. Chuy said it best. This article was totally one sided and made DJ Backside some kind of "martyr for the movement". She's a crap DJ who was MADE by Jim Archer. Manufactured DJ for a manufactured music style. How can this writer blame Big Von and DJs for everything and not blame the lackluster artists it regurgitated? Maybe now that hyphy goes away, the real ARTISTS will shine. Artists like Mac Mall and E-40 sold 70,000+ copies in the early 90s with ZERO radio play. Non-Bay artists today like Tech N9ne and ICP do the same thing. If you depend on commercial radio for sales then your music SUCKS PERIOD

    Comment by jobber707 — February 21, 2008 @ 12:02PM

  11. For the record:
    1)i have no financial interest in mistah fab or any other artist. lol.
    2)fab was interviewed two separate times, the most recent being a couple days before this article ran.
    3) big von himself is quoted as saying "i'm known as a big hater" in the july 2005 issue of ruckus magazine.
    4) Mac Mall actually sold 230,000+ copies of Illegal Business? in 1993, while E-40's group the Click moved 300,000+ units of Down 'n' Dirty in 1992.
    5)"Rapper" is spelled with two P's.

    Comment by EA — February 21, 2008 @ 03:11PM

  12. Hyphy music killed itself; don't try to blame a radio station for following the correct music trends. You can't even say they don't support the hyphy movement because KMEL has been playing hyphy music ever since its conception...and the continued on even through it's dead points. In the last couple weeks, they've played hyphy sets. Hyphy is actually on its way back up now that E-40's coming out with new tracks again, but they won't be receiving airplay unless they start sounding new and fresh...the original reason why people fell in love with it in the first place.

    You can blame Von all you want, but like Davey D said, he took on that position and will have to deal with the consequences of being where he is. Von takes orders from entities higher up the ladder to keep his job. You can hate on him all you want, but he's just doing his job, and may I add he is doing it well. Everyone has a boss to answer to. Don't you Eric?

    Hyphy was nice & cute, but we all knew it wasn't gonna last long. You can only hear about stunnas, scrapers, and ghostriding for so long. Even Crunk music learned how to evolve so it didn't dissolve into nothing at all. Most hyphy is one-dimensional music that ended up encouraging youths to go dumb and ruin events. It was fun and quirky in the beginning, but became redundant and stale in the end. You can't blame Von & co. for recognizing a dying trend. All of us knew it.

    This article is full of Bay Area "rapers" bitching and moaning about how they didn't get their shine on. Mistah FAB was backed by Jazzy Jim way before Hyphy broke out; he was on Jazzy's old record label (Straight Hits) with songs like "Hula-hoop." There was always a close relationship between the two. Jazzy threw record-listening parties for Mistah FAB. He was one of the artists to have almost full access to BOTH of the radio stations, not to mention his guest spot on The Wake Up Show. Surely, you CANNOT have Mistah FAB bitching about his lack of access to airwaves.

    It only applied to KMEL? Understand that both stations have sounds that they stick to and the fact is that not all of Fab's songs (like ghostride it) don't fit KMEL's format, but fit directly with KYLD's format.

    Oh...And correlating the hyphy's demise with Von's beef with Mistah FAB? Like you said earlier...these hyphy kids were making bad business moves. FAB not getting in cool with Von? Bad business move #1. I don't even know if that beef's real, but it doesn't matter. Independent artists should always make it a point to get in good with the MD; any other way is career suicide. You CANNOT imply that this is the kind of beef that stopped people from receiving airplay all across the board.

    Lastly, shame on you Eric Arnold. Your slippery-slope reasoning is going to have a lot of people pointing their fingers at A man who is just taking it for THE man. Blame the Clear Channel corporation, not Von. Hyphy was a trend plain and simple. Don't pretend like they were doing anything mind blowing. They had a cool vibe and some catchy hooks. They were once fresh. Then the formula caught on, and every rapper in the bay thought they were next up.

    Congratulations on being the voice for all the disgruntled artists in the Bay who just aren't good enough. All those not-good-enough's should be thankful (and this doesn't include artists who create good music regardless of airplay) cuz you finally published something they've been wanting to say.

    Hey "rapers"...if you aren't on the air yet, get your music tight and original. Don't blame radio. Blame yourselves for biting too much and trying to sound like who's up now. Blame yourself, and you will improve. Don't continue to let other people dictate your life path just cuz they said 'no.' Blame yourself and understand why you don't have what it takes at the moment.

    And yes, "Rapper" is spelled with two p's. Totally something different with only one p.

    Comment by Anonymous — February 21, 2008 @ 04:41PM

  13. Good Riddance hyphy. im not sad to see it go at all. Sure it was fun for like a week but after a bunch of posers jumped on the bandwagon and flooded the scene with garbage it was doomed. Crunk lasted because it kept a hard edge and was able to transcend it's orignal niche market, the durty durty. Hyphy was just way to childish and in poor taste. Why would i want to act retarded and ride a yellow bus im fricken 24 years old?

    Big Von is a victim in this one sided article. He's a great radio host and that's not easy to do. I saw him open up at the latest mos def show at the mezzanine and listen to his show on my way home from work every night.

    The other victims are the little kids growing up in the bay area that think it's cool to go dumb and shake your dreds. In NYC kids grow up wanting to be dope lyricists and write deep rymes, here they wanna make slaps and it's another example of rich white folk selling lame music to hold people down instead of inspire them.

    To e40. I've been a huge fan since The Hall of Game and wish you could release another album that is at least on par with that one.

    Comment by MDM — February 21, 2008 @ 06:12PM

  14. hey "anonymous",
    a few points:
    1) did you even read the part about the reasons why kmel threw its weight behind hyphy in the first place? it's a fact that the return of local music to the air in 2002-2003 coincided with public criticsm of the station. and sure, kmel played the song "hyphy" in 2004, but you only heard a trickle of local records until Power 92 came along. after that, popular demand forced them to keep playing it, since these records were outperforming national hits by Von's own admission.
    2)the fact that local records are being spun on mixshows (but are not listed on official playlists) was reported in the story.
    3) E-40's album was originally scheduled for 3rd quarter '07. and pardon me for saying this, but wasn't the knock on hyphy two years ago the perception that 40 year old rappers, i.e. $hort and E-40, couldnt by definition lead a youth movement? that's why FAB was so crucial as a spokesman, not only is he in his 20s, but he's more multifaceted than commercial radio led you to believe. and if he's ‘not good enough’ for airplay now, then why was he ever in rotation?
    4) you say, "You can only hear about stunnas, scrapers, and ghostriding for so long." i completely agree. in fact, that's the point of the whole article. so why didn't we hear the Federation's gospel-tinged "I'll Fly Away" on the radio? or their heavy-metal track, "Black Roses"? it's a fact that back in the day, KMEL played Nirvana. isn't radio supposed to break new music? especially when the station is "known" for doing so, as Stacy Cunningham pointed out?
    5)you also say, "Even Crunk music learned how to evolve so it didn't dissolve into nothing at all. " i wouldnt exactly call Souljaboy an evolutionary step. if you know anything about bay area artists, you know that they had more to talk about than than stunna shades and scrapers, you just didnt hear about it on the radio. again, this was pointed out in the article.
    6) if there was just one incident of a MD beefing with an artist, that would be one thing. Reportage showed that there was a clear pattern of similar instances involving this particular individual and other artists and/or their label reps extending back at least four years. really, how can you hate on Mac Dre and claim to rep the bay at all?
    7) Actually, there are plenty of "good" local artists who get no play from KMEL, as the article pointed out. some of them actually sell records too.
    8)gee, you seem to be making some of thethe same points i did, except i had more facts at my disposal. now that's shameful!
    9) it sure takes a lot of guts to call yourself "anonymous"

    Comment by EA — February 21, 2008 @ 06:31PM

  15. Commercial radio stations of the 21st century aren't about cultivating unique services to entertain a local community, they're all about hashing out cookie-cutter formats that can be replicated on 30 - 300 stations across the continent. Hyphy had its moment to prove itself, it didn't deliver the audience advertisers wanted to pay top $$ to reach, now it's gone from radio. That's the beginning, middle and end of it.

    I know, it's more dramatic and entertaining to point fingers at someone and say it's all their fault. But the simple and depressing fact of the matter is that some things have a limited shelf life. Be grateful for what was, because a lot of other club formats never even came close to getting the airplay hyphy did.

    It's dead. Deal.

    Comment by a cunning stunt — February 21, 2008 @ 07:56PM

  16. This article wasn’t written in defense of hyphy music. This has nothing to do with a couple listeners personal feelings about individual artists. The critics are completely missing the point. This is about holding KMEL accountable for abandoning local viable talent due to petty beefs, backroom deals and unchecked, self serving on and off air “talent”.

    Self Serving, Self Absorbed, Sell Outs.

    The truth is that there are local artists who can be successful, even in this watered down homogenous format. KMEL simply chooses to ignore those artists as they don’t fit into the hidden agendas of the SSS.

    Lyrics Born, like him or not, had a local hit with “Callin Out” but only found radio play on Live 105. Even an Indy Rock station could identify the potential of that single. How f*cking absurd is that? And before you try to tell me that artist like The Coup Blackalicious, Lyrics Born and Hieroglyphics don’t fit KMEL’s format, check out some of the artists who’ve appeared on their remixes and get familiar with the global rap audience. Commercial rap and underground rap enjoyed a lucrative and harmonious union this summer in front of over 50,000 people at the Rock the Bells Concert in SF.

    Wake the F*ck up KMEL.

    Comment by Jack Frost — February 22, 2008 @ 02:54AM

  17. This article wasn’t written in defense of hyphy music. This has nothing to do with a couple listeners personal feelings about individual artists. The critics are completely missing the point. This is about holding KMEL accountable for abandoning local viable talent due to petty beefs, backroom deals and unchecked, self serving on and off air “talent”.

    Self Serving, Self Absorbed, Sell Outs.

    The truth is that there are local artists who can be successful, even in this watered down homogenous format. KMEL simply chooses to ignore those artists as they don’t fit into the hidden agendas of the SSS.

    Lyrics Born, like him or not, had a local hit with “Callin Out” but only found radio play on Live 105. Even an Indy Rock station could identify the potential of that single. How f*cking absurd is that? And before you try to tell me that artist like The Coup, Blackalicious, Lyrics Born and Hieroglyphics don’t fit KMEL’s format, check out some of the artists who’ve appeared on their remixes and get familiar with the global rap audience. Commercial rap and underground rap enjoyed a lucrative and harmonious union this summer in front of over 50,000 people at the Rock the Bells Concert in SF.

    Wake the F*ck up KMEL.

    Comment by Jack Frost — February 22, 2008 @ 03:28AM

  18. Great article, one of the best reads in awhile. However, I must agree with one of the previous comments that it was a completely one-sided attempt at blaming KMEL for single-handedly killing the movement. Let me tell you, I stay smack dab in the middle of the hood and will confirm for you that nothing Hyphy has been getting play in any cars coming through the block for at least a couple years now. The truth is rappers have more control over their careers than this article will have you believe. It's simple - you make good music, it gets played. In my opinion (and that of many others), the early/mid-90s was the Bay Area's heyday. The stuff that was coming out then was not just good on a local level, but just good period. And guess what? The ones putting out good shit were rewarded with major label deals. 4-Tay even got play on MTV. When those same artists started putting out the junk of the late-90s to present, guess what? They lost their deals.

    The Hyphy-train was an overhyped phenomena started by someone who created a halfway decent track and that brought along a bunch coattail riders and their failed attempts trying to mimick the sound. And just like the mid-90s, the ones actually putting out decent shit got or were considered for major deals (I don't see E40 or Too Short complaining much). The DOWNFALL in the first place was that something was creating out of nothing.

    KMEL is first and foremost a mainstream radio station - that's what they always have been, regardless of who owned them. You would be crazy to think they were ever anything else. Should they show support to local artists? Of course. But I don't care if you live on the Bay Bridge, if your music sucks, it sucks. To say KMEL overplayed Hyphy to oblivion is ridiculous. That sounds like a wack rapper's excuse of why he never made it. New Orleans, Houston, and Atlanta has dominated every music outlet imaginable for the past 4-5 years. People are not tired of it and they are not going anywhere. And I can tell you why...

    I've had a fascination with music trends from a very young age and I can tell you point blank the ONE problem that has plagued Bay Area rappers since the beginning of time:

    WEAK PRODUCTION.

    Bay Area rappers need to get off their soapbox of being independent and making independent money. At some point, you're going to have to shell out coin and pay a producer for a good track. It doesn't even matter if you can't rap. Half of them Southern rappers can't. But they have producers who make CATCHY BEATS and at the end of the day that's what matters most. The same with "underground" MCs. Nobody is trying to hear their lyrics, they wanna hear a good BEAT. When you're noddin' your head, it's not because of the words - you're doing it to the BEAT. Until the Bay realizes this, they will NEVER break national ground. Ask Ya Boy and he can tell you exactly what I'm talking about. He knows that if he's gonna become a star, it won't be in the Bay. Keyshia Cole didn't move to LA because she her man cheated on her. She moved there to get a damn record deal. And when she made it big, where did she go? Atlanta. That's all I need to say right there.

    The Bay just needs to stop concentrating so hard on being the Bay and just make some good music. San Quinn should've *been* a millionaire by now.

    Comment by The Truth — February 22, 2008 @ 03:59AM

  19. First, Souljaboy isn't crunk. He's a snap rapper, a ringtone star, and barely fits into the category of rap music. If there was something called "mumble" or "growl" that might work.

    I'd think the piece would be better served as calling it what it is, pointing out the corruption (or simply petty hater-ism) at this radio station rather than the dramatic suggestion that the events killed Hyphy. Trends and fads always come and go, and Bay Area hip hop will survive I'm sure. To me, "hyphy" is more like one of those journalistic short hand terms like "trip hop" or even "crunk," less a movement than a description, despite the artifacts and behaviors and dances associated with hyphy music. So then "hyphy" will probably always be around as long as E-40 is dropping records, but people (journalists) wont call it hyphy. Just like our Three Six boys here in TN still make "buck" music but no one talks about buck or calls it buck.

    MM
    tuneinmusiccity.com

    Comment by Mark Mays — February 22, 2008 @ 08:53AM

  20. I like KMEL, I like FAB, I even like the GATEKEEPER.
    Perhaps Mr. Arnold likes beating a "dead" horse.

    On May 13 of 2007, the San Jose Mercury News did an article on the same topic.
    They had more quoted sources with REAL names and did not blame one or two people for the demise of a movement.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/marianliu/ci_5869850

    And Mr. Arnold, you have had your turn to air your story over 5 pages.
    Please respect the comments of your readers and do not respond to them in the comment section of your own article. Very unbecoming of a writer sir. If your article is fair and truthful, there should be no need to defend your work.

    Good Day!
    Last of the Famous

    "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."
    -Winston Churchill

    Comment by last of the famous — February 22, 2008 @ 10:32AM

  21. i'm loving the fact that there's so much debate over these issues. A spirited, vigorous discussion, besides being entertaining, is just what's needed. however, let's examine some of these points raised:
    "The truth is rappers have more control over their careers than this article will have you believe."
    Really? I thought the piece made a pretty good case that KMEL can make or break an artist, and sometimes does both. the fact that that choice comes down to one man judging artists not on artistic merit, but on how much ass they kiss, is ridiculous. think about it: WYLD 94 didn't pull E-40 from rotation after he started doing his show on KMEL. how one-sided is that?
    As for the "weak production" argument, i don't buy it. The New York Times called Turf Talk's album the best rap release of the year. The production on that one was bananas, as was Turf's lyrical delivery. Being that Rick Rock (the Federation, E-40, etc.) has made tracks for everyone from Mariah Carey to Jay-Z to Busta Rhymes to Fabolous, it simply can't be said that the man can't produce national hits. When "Tell Me When to Go" came out, people thought it was a Rick Rock track -- it was actually Lil' Jon, biting Rick's style. Traxamillion's album had some of the best production I've heard in ages. The Pack's Young L is phenomenal. Trackademics, who does a lot of FAB's stuff, is an amazing talent who can freak a hyphy beat, a backpack beat, or a B'more remix. Amplive of Zion-I has crafted radio hits by Goapele and Kafani, worked with Linkin Park, and recently remixed Radiohead. Zion-I's single with Too $hort, "Don't Lose Ya Head" was both catchy and conscious. It SHOULD have been a huge hit. The Coup is consistently mentioned on critic's top ten lists every time they make an album. Messy Marv gets no airplay, but consistently charts on Billboard -- he even outsold 50 Cent-- and sells units because his fans know his track record when it comes to quality control. Lyrics Born and Blackalicious both have incredible production, but you've never heard them on KMEL. Ever.
    The problem is that the gatekeeper who determines airplay for local artists has a closed-minded mentality. It's kinda like that David Spade commercial, where the guy gets trained in how to say "no."
    As for the argument that Bay Area rappers lost their major label deals in the '90s because they sucked, i don't think so. Hieroglyphics sold 100,000+ indie after getting dropped by Jive. Del was a big reason why the first Gorillaz album went multiplatinum -- i don't think KMEL ever spun that. The Luniz' production on their second album was just as good as their first, which went gold. Digital Underground's "Freaks of the Industry" was never commercially released as a single, yet it's still in KMEL rotation to this day because the production was classic. 3xKrazy were dropped by Virgin, but group member Keak Da Sneak went on to sell 50,000 copies of his solo releases in Oakland alone. Paris was dropped by Tommy Boy not because of weak production, but because of politics. I don't think you can sell over 500,000 copies of a record if your beats suck. San Quinn is a better rapper now than when he had a major deal. I could go on, but i think i've made my point.

    Comment by EA — February 22, 2008 @ 10:37AM

  22. When I read this article the first time around, I laughed my ass off!

    It's sooo funny to me that people are upset that Hyphy died. There was not much positivity that came from the hyphy movement besides people having a good time (when they weren't getting out of control) and the bay getting some notoriety.

    I'm not gonna sit up here and defend kmel because they're not innocent at all. Bottom line, just like Chuy said, there's only so much Hyphy Music someone can hear before it all sounds the same. If you went out, and asked random 12 to 24 year olds the top 5 artists they're listening to right now, they won't say anything Hyphy because it's played out. Now, Eric Arnold's comment "put the kibosh on efforts to spread hyphy in other regions" is just plain idiotic. KMEL pushed Hyphy to other regions so they would not have to play it? I'm really going to need the SF Weekly to do better background checks on their writers.

    I'll agree, I would love to hear more Bay Artists on KMEL IF they were making GOOD music. FAB has always been GARBAGE to me. He's a gimmick that's completely stupid. Yellow Bus, goin dummy thizzin and all that is fuckin retarded. The Team, Frontline and San Quinn are artists who don't talk about that and actually put EFFORT into their music and not just some thoughtless mindnumbing get rich quick scheme they call music. Now I turned KMEL off when they would play that dumbass "Crank Dat" bullshit, but at the time, that's what was HOT! It wasn't just KMEL playin it, it was MTV, BET and MEDIA in general. If Hyphy isn't hot anymore, why would KMEL keep playin it?

    In a perfect world, artists would actually care about what message they're putting out to young people and not "dumbing" people down. This article would have made sense if he defended the point that KMEL rarely plays good Bay Area artists like Zion I, Goapele, Ise Lyfe and others. Ise Lyfe said it best "How did my people go from fighting for freeDOM, to goin DUMB for free?" So when KMEL stopped playin Hyphy, I sure in the hell didn't cry about it. But it would be great if they could play good positive Bay Artists.

    In the end, like Eric also put in, other Bay Artists have been able to sell records without the help of radio and cats nowadays are lazy and feel like they should have the royal treatment for they're wackass song, including Radio playing their songs all day, everyday. If FAB was such a good artist, he wouldn't need Radio. If ANY Hyphy artist was great, they wouldn't need radio. So until artists can become god and get in good with Clearchannel and control their airwaves, cats need to stop bein lazy and get on their hustle.

    Bottomline, 106KMEL should do a better job of supporting local artists and local artists need to do a better job when making music so that KMEL would be BEGGING to play their music.

    By the way, I never heard of Fab before KMEL when he was on their airwaves doin the Battles on Friday nights on BIG VON'S SHOW years ago, but Big Von's the hater?

    Comment by Tired of Bay Area's Lackluster music — February 22, 2008 @ 12:52PM

  23. Everything "The Truth" said is 100% REAL!!! Weak production and lazy artists with get rich quick motives DO NOT make for good music! "The Truth" dude said it BEST!!!

    Comment by I concur — February 22, 2008 @ 01:26PM

  24. First and foremost this is not an article its an Op-Ed piece. If the point is to expose the unfair business practices of KMEL/Clear Channel then it should be labeled as such. But to hide behind the demise of Hyphy is not fair or ethical journalism. There are a lot of facts presented but there are also a few things left out that would have made it a more balanced editorial. Both Von and Fab are friends of mine and I respect both stances on the situation. However it would have made a lot more sense and made a lot better story if more people (label reps, artists, dj's, industry insiders) that are relevant were quoted.

    Comment by Branden Peters — February 22, 2008 @ 02:09PM

  25. all yall should be happy radio embraced it at all, in 1977 the NME said punk was dead..the Dead Kennedy's and Operation Ivy..from the bay...never had the luxury you all have/had..radio reflects the revolution..it does not or has never started it. Hyphy ain't dead...to say so would be to claim hip hop is dead..its a long game folks.

    Comment by mac — February 22, 2008 @ 03:31PM

  26. all yall should be happy radio embraced it at all, in 1977 the NME said punk was dead..the Dead Kennedy's and Operation Ivy..from the bay...never had the luxury you all have/had..radio reflects the revolution..it does not or has never started it. Hyphy ain't dead...to say so would be to claim hip hop is dead..its a long game folks.

    Comment by mac — February 22, 2008 @ 03:31PM

  27. For me, being from Oakland and listening to all the local music at concerts, i was always wondering why i wasnt hearing some of the best music from these artists on KMEL. I'll name some songs: the federation's fly away and my rimz, the whole album actually is one of the best I've heard in a while. There's also jennifer johns, boots/the coup, Casual,and many more. Frankly, i'm sick of hearing the one e-40 song that comes on every day. and i'm really sick of hearing all the soft, lame chick songs. I'm 39 and female, maybe out of the age group they cater to, but i still want to hear local music. it's resulted in me making my own CDs and i hardly ever listen to the radio anymore because it's the same old thing. thanks eric arnold and sf weekly for enlightening me on what's really happening. i hope that more people will call in and start requesting more local music so the station will truly be for the people. and maybe they will listen.

    Comment by j.net — February 22, 2008 @ 04:13PM

  28. I AM DJ BUSY B, ALL I KNOW IS THAT THE RADIOS STATIONS ARE FULL OF SHIT BIG VON IS THE BIGGEST HATER OF THEM ALL. HE SHOULD BE CALLED BIG HOGG FULL OF JEALOUSY WHY? I DONT GET IT!!! THERE ARE SO MANY UPCOMING ARTIST OUT THERE BUT THERE IS ALWAYS A WAY!!! I JUST PAY $100 DOLLARS A MONTH FOR XM RADIO I DONT SUPPORT LOCAL RADIOS STATIONS BECAUSE THEY ARE SO FAKE. IF THATS WHAT IT TAKES XM STATION 60 PLAYS MORE BAY AREA THEM THE BAY AREA OWN RADIO STATION. FIRED BIG HOGG!!!! www.myspace.com/djbusyb

    Comment by DJ BUSY — February 22, 2008 @ 08:03PM

  29. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAYcieMTYxI
    Go this Link it is the TRUE STORY ON ALL THIS STUFF WATCH IT

    Comment by Sean K — February 23, 2008 @ 03:44AM

  30. Pre-2003, if you requested Bay music in a club, andthe DJ told you that it didn't mix well. Then Mac Dre dies and the Hyphy movement is born. People who couldn't point the Crest out on a map were "thizz-facing" and "ghost-riding the whip" in front of City Nights.

    I love Bay music, but am glad this hype is over. While the posers have moved on to T-Pain and Soulja Boy, I still PURCHASE and listen to local artist.

    Wasn't one of Mac Dre's first hits "2 Hard 4 the F*cking Radio?"

    Comment by NB — February 23, 2008 @ 11:07AM

  31. KMEL sucks!

    I never listen to them anymore, along with a lot of other folks. I would think they're numbers reflect this. Clear Channel = Wack! F#ck commercial sell-outs. Besides, Nobody cares about their personal politics. They just want to hear good music, Hyphy or not. And KMEL killing local legends like Living Legends, Hiero, Lyrics Born, etc. is just plain stupid! But in some ways, if I was the one of those artists I wouldn't want to be played on that wack ass station anyway. KMEL, keep on playing the same old shit!, heard on every other station. And everyone will keep on - Not Listening! Eventually, this will bring about change. And a new postitive force in the airways will emerge. And hopefully they will be in it for the music and the people, And not for the same crap they play everywhere. Along with the same commercials that they pump for money. Perhaps if HD radio expands more, and has more available stations. People will start listening for the music once again! as well.

    "The People's station" - please.
    "The Clear Channel - We don't give a f#ck, we just want money from our advertisers station" is more like it.

    Play your Justin Timberlake. Nobody's listening anyway.

    Comment by DKAF — February 23, 2008 @ 03:39PM

  32. First off, I need to say that it ain't so much about "hyphy" needing to have a place, but about local artists getting pushed. I know I'm sick of the radio now, rather listen to XM and hear more real s*** too. But KMEL needs to remember what's called in business: "social responsibility." This is the concept that if a big corporation moves into your town, they are obligated to donate services of their specialty in the local community, inject money into the local economy, clean up their community, repair the roads, pick up trash, whatever!!! And little known, most corporations have special departments dedicated to this exact concept. They PAY to employ people for the specific purpose of creating and producing programs that meet their local "social obligations." KMEL is NOT meeting ITS social obligations. Boycott KMEL, write a letter, get Von fired, somethin! There's no room for "haters" in "The People's Station". This is important to the health of our local music scene. I have long-time friends who are stakeholders in the economy of Bay Area rap/hip-hop, and KMEL, which has monopolized the public avenue for this music, has a RESPONSIBILITY to the COMMUNITY to promote our local rap artists and help them to become successful. Without public airplay, how are our local artists supposed to reach the top? I don't have to tell you what the alternative is; I'll just say that by pushing our locals to the top, we improve our community in more ways than one. And that's all she wrote.

    Comment by Yalla — February 23, 2008 @ 04:05PM

  33. There has been an utter lack of support by corporate radio station owners for bay area music for many, many years. The last time I recall hearing regularly played local rap music was in the late 80's-mid 90's. But, that was also before Clear Channel. Just as AT&T owns most of the fiber in the ground in the bay area (& therefore the right to charge for usage to other Telecoms)- Clear Channel owns most (if not all) of the major signal carrying stations in the U.S.
    Good points were made about CCC's obvious fear of the activists here impeding their FCC licensing. Well, the 8 year limit is coming once again & we all know what we have to do here in the bay: petition, show up @ meetings & protest.
    Also, don't go to clubs where the parties are sponsored by CCC or KMEL, period. Besides, those events are usually 'amateur night' -and usually lead to some sort of police activity.
    The writer did forget to also mention that another much needed community show has been silenced by CCC: Street Soldiers.
    It's plain to see that CCC & the stations they own do not care about the community in which they claim to be a part of. Boycott CCC!!!

    Comment by Tree_thru_Forest — February 23, 2008 @ 05:59PM

  34. 106 kmel street soldiers is from 8-10pm sunday nights and features weekly commentary on the state of the community, youth local and national news, has not been silenced and does not silence its listeners or callers. The show has been apart of the lineup for over 16 years, and welcomes calls about weekly topics. 1-800-soldier

    Comment by Street Soldiers — February 23, 2008 @ 07:37PM

  35. While I do believe that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, including me, in no way does my comment in SF Weekly directly represent INgrooves, but rather myself as a listener with no finger pointing directed to the aforementioned. A lot of folks have hit me up about this with a "wow that was bold" - my being a part of the Urban Dept at INgrooves was only a catalyst for a couple of the artist interviews in the article -with no intention to be mentioned.

    However, I must say this, it was a well written article with hair raising content that makes you wanna say "damn why you all up in my shit like toilet paper"

    Bottom line - I support anyone who supports a great artist Major or Indie, because I'm one of those people working with Majors and Indies towards progressive endeavors- in the digital realm of this music industry.

    Comment by Hannah Wagner — February 23, 2008 @ 09:56PM

  36. It sickens me to my core that 1. This article long and completely hypocritical took up so much space in my SF Weekly Newspaper and 2. That SF Weekly has such a crap employee staff that let Eric Arnold write this long drawn out bullshit of people cryin over spilled milk.

    I live in the Heart of Hunters Point. There is something bigger than the loss of Hyphy. How bout the fact that people on our streets are DYING more and more? How bout the fact that drugs are killing more and more? You want to defend Hyphy? The music that talked about "thizzin off E Pills" or how kids can't go to functions without someone getting too "hyphy" and one push, turns to a shove that in then turns to guns being drawn. Lyrics and actions of the hyphy movement helped in the assassination of so many young people. Day after day guns are fired in Fillmore, HP, Bayview and Mission Districts and instead of San Francisco Weekly (The news of San Francisco right?) trying to get to the bottom of the plague that runs our city, I have to read about the "death of hyphy with 106KMEL as the culprit"? How bout the fact that most of the inner city kids don't have a proper education and helpful guides to becoming successful?

    Oh I forgot, according to the SF Weekly, the Death of Hyphy music and bitching about a radio station (that will more than likely not listen to anything the disgruntled folks are complaining about) is much more important. I forgot that out of the millions of people in the bay area, the SF Weekly thinks its more important to listen and quote 8 people about how 106KMEL is garbage. I also forgot that Eric Arnold and SF Weekly cares more about "goin dumb" and "thizzin". I forgot that Eric Arnold and SF Weekly care more about the distruction of young people and not about the educations that our kids are lacking. I forgot all that.

    Is this SF Weekly's answer to acknowledging something "black" to cover their "black history month" quota? Eric, how much money did you make from writing this bullshit?

    There's a bigger picture people. Hyphy is dead because it needs to be. Nothing good came out of it besides kids being shot and IQ's going down.

    To all the people crying in the article, get a new hobby. If your goal in life is to attack radio stations because you don't have YOUR way, then you won't get far. Hyphy is dead and good riddance.

    To 106KMEL, all I ask is to please use your voice to help elevate people positively.

    To Eric Arnold, shame on you.

    To SF Weekly, shame on you.

    Comment by Gregory Henry *No longer a reader of SF Weekly* **Eric Arnold, McDonalds wants YOU!** — February 24, 2008 @ 02:53AM

  37. Gregory, not to get all Bill Clinton on you, but i feel your pain.

    You are correct in stating that the situation in HP is very grave. But there in an inherent hypocrisy in linking hyphy directly to street violence, especially since that violence -- a result of undereducation, underemployment, and high recidivism rates -- predates the existance of hyphy by many years. KMEL, on the other hand, has continually been connected to violence at events it has promoted since at least 1995, and was specifically named in a 2002 lawsuit by a man who was stabbed in a South Bay club which KMEL promoted.

    You can lash out at me all you want, but you may be unaware that in 2001, when the turf wars in HP were at their peak, i wrote a cover story(for another SF alt.weekly) on Kevin Epps, the director of the film "straight Outta Hunters Point." While other newspapers linked the turf wars to rap music with sensationalistic headlines, I was the only reporter who dared to set foot on the streets of HP after dark. Epps and I narrowly escaped the fate of Tyrone "Bumpa Joe" Laury (R.I.P.), a good-natured guy who helped me gather information for the article before being tragically murdered during an early-morning drive-by.

    Due in part to the exposure generated by that article, Epps won several awards, and has gone on to become a positive role model for kids in HP, as well as a community activist working to change the situation there. A couple of weeks ago, Kevin called me to say he was teaching film at USF, and thanked me for believing in him way back when he was unknown and unaccomplished.

    Back in 2001, i noted that gangster rap, while seemingly negative and nihilistic, was actually a positive form of expression since it represented a creative outlet for a marginalized, at-risk demographic to express themselves in an artistic manner. Similarly, Hyphy came from the streets, but it promoted partying instead of shootouts, and turf dancing instead of turf wars. It represented the voice of kids betrayed by the failure of public education to do anything for them -- it's no coincidence that both the Oakland and Vallejo school districts were taken over by the state due to mismanagement in the past few years. Hyphy represented a chance and an opportunity for ghetto youth to do something with their lives that was vibrant, and possibly successful. These kids needed an outlet to give them something to do other than hanging out on street corners. I'd personally rather see our youth in music studios than in prison cells.

    You charge, "Lyrics and actions of the hyphy movement helped in the assassination of so many young people." I'd like to see you back up that statement with some facts. What lyrics, specifically? As for actions, I've personally attended events like the S.O.S benefit for Katrina victims at