Hey what’s up hip hop column readers. I know it’s been a long time since I’ve published a column but your man has been very busy and occupied with positive endeavors. Just to give you a brief update, of course if you didn’t already know my company Vudu Spellz Ent Inc/Track Kingz has signed a management agreement with Bad Boy Management of Diddy’s Bad Boy Worldwide enterprise and we are currently workin on music and songs for various artist on Bad Boy’s publishing and affiliate companies rosters. I currently have launched my graphic design myspace which is www.myspace.com/vudugraphix and I’ve been helping with the marketing of the hottest new Jazz club in Vegas, Caylix Jazz Club www.caylixjazzclub.com.  I’ve been working on my group Chocolate City’s album, out of Chicago, and I’ve been with some local artist, Straw the Vegas Don, and Olya Cassey from Vegas as well. I’ve also been traveling, and pursuing my DJ career, but even though everything I just mentioned was important this columns focus is on my latest project that I am honored to be a part of. The all new “Soul School Station”, Power 88, is my new home.

Smooth C, Craig Knight, once again reached out and showed some more love and linked me up with Prinze Paul to coordinate my position as a “Power 88 Dream Team” mix show DJ. Of course this is an honor, an investment, and a great opportunity for me to reach a very big audience of listeners who appreciate the music we spin and to help promote ourselves as Dj’s. I also will get a chance to help with their graphic design department and marketing department. You may ask yourself, “what does that have to do with the hip hop corner. Get on with the good stuff.” So with that being said I will enlighten you on The all new Power 88 and why it’s being featured on this weeks Hip Hop Corner.

Hip hop breathes in every 80’s baby, and even in some of us born in the crazy Woodstock days, but what better way to reach the savage beast than radio. Hip hop planted its seed in millions via radio. The first time you heard Eric B and Rakim or Run DMC was on the radio. When we heard our first hip hop song it changed our whole view on music as a whole and our perception of momma’s R&B record collection we were forced to listen to on Saturday morning as she was cleaning the house. Hip hop became “our music”. We owned it. It related to what we felt and most of all what we wanted to say. Radio became our Martin Luther King, our Malcolm X, and our mental babysitters. I can remember tuning in to the first mix show Dj’s in Chicago on WBMX. I always wanted to be like them. Back then we would tape the mixes on cassette tapes. Some type we would get in trouble for taping over one of our parents Al Green  or  Temptation tapes but it was a risk that was worth it when you got to hear it later in the park with your friends or in  your room.   

Technology today is very different and more convenient but the element is still the same. Hip hop is in us and it bridges the gap between people in their 30’s and teenagers who both love Jay Z and Mary J. Blige. Radio plays a big part in this equation. Power 88 has been in this community for many years. It the heartbeat soul radio in Vegas and represents the community. It represents all the people who don’t just fly in for a weekend to enjoy the strip or people who come here on vacation who eventually fly back to their hometowns. Power 88 is home and it represents the grass roots people who need to hear songs from their past that soothe them and take them back to a time and place that made them who they are, not songs that play every hour on the hour that some program director they can’t relate to is forced to compute into the system for political reasons. It’s more than that. It’s about the people and the music.

With Power 88 being a “Public” non for profit radio station it’s much harder to do some of the things that other radio station can do on the positive end though. Funding is very limited and there are numerous restrictions on advertising and underwritings for the station. That is why the station depends on it’s listeners to donate what they can to keep the station breathing.

Power 88 plays majority soul and R&B for the mature urban market, but on the hip hop side of things there is programming that focuses on our young hip hop demographic. They have the Dream Team mix Dj’s who mix R&B and hip hop as well and Power’s rating are starting to be very successful since they have become the “All New” Power 88, under new management and direction. There are more new people tuning in now than before and with technology as an ally it’s really been making a positive impact. You can be from Idaho and tune in to the station via the internet at www.power88lv.com.

As I’ve said before, hip hop is alive and well and Vegas isn’t an exception. Hip hop is the medicine and Power 88 is the needle. We need to embrace the station and look at the station as more than a station but a part of Vegas history that will continue to be the glue that holds the community together, and an alternative from other mediums that will don’t want to lose. If you want to do your part in helping the station they are having a telethon May 25^th –June 3rd and even after the telethon you can call in and donate to keep hip hop and Power 88 alive.

POWER 88

OFFICE PHONE#:702.647.1509

DONATIONS/ REQUEST LINE:702.647.3688

WEB SITE: www.power88lv.com