H2: An End of an Era (Part 3 of 3)
June 14, 2017
In Part 2, I mentioned that sometimes I would explore some more adventurous ideas on Redefinition Radio that I thought might push the limits too far, but I didn't really elaborate on what I meant by that. One of my all-time favorite things I ever did on radio was my four-week special titled, "The History Of Hip Hop Radio."
Growing up — particularly spending a lot of time on army bases away from large metro areas where hip-hop was widely accessible — I depended on dubbed tapes of radio shows in order to stay current on new music. Most of those shows were based in New York, but also Philly, Detroit and other places as well. With that in mind, it was important for me to go back and pay homage to the very radio shows that were instrumental in feeding my need for new music early in life.
Not only that, it was immensely fun to go back and listen to those original tapes from the 1980s, and then re-create specific segments of those radio programs. For this radio special, I enlisted the talents of DJ Plain Ole Bill, and together we intently listened to live radio mixes from Chuck Chillout, Red Alert, Afrika Islam (Zulu Beats Show), Mr. Magic & Marley Marl, and Jeff "The Wizard" Mills from Detroit. From there, DJ Plain Ole Bill studied the mixes and then made his own mixes, one mix to represent each DJ, playing the same songs, in the same order and mimicking their style, including cutting up things in a near exact fashion as the original broadcasts.
Then, I took his mixes and edited in sound bytes from the original radio shows (including echoes, dialog from the show's hosts, station IDs, etc.) to make it feel like you had travelled back in time to the day those mixes originally aired on the radio. In addition to that, as a part of the 4-week special, I also played original Mastermixes by Shep Pettibone, Latin Rascals, Mixmaster Gee and KDAY Mastermix DJ, Curtis Harmon (complete with interview segments I did with Greg Mack from KDAY Radio in LA, the first 24 Hour Hip Hop station in the country).
I felt I might be breaking all kinds of radio rules or ethics. I was playing material that I had digitized from old low-bias cassette tapes, that didn't sound great when I first got them. Plus, I was editing in different station call letters and frequencies, which would likely be confusing to anyone who just tuned and didn't' get the theme. Essentially, I was using The Current as a platform to celebrate other radio stations, which may or may not still exist in some capacity.
That is undoubtedly one of my proudest accomplishments on radio. But, I'm happy with a lot of the theme shows I did on Redefinition Radio, and I knew what I was doing wasn't the norm, and that it was only for a very niche market, but I wanted to push the limits, even if I risked losing the show.
While still doing Redefinition Radio, Jim McGuinn took over as the Program Director of The Current, which I learned about via an email from Derrick Stevens on March 3, 2009. Although I had no specific reason to be, I remember being a little concerned merely at the idea that someone new was in that position. I was worried that I may have simply gotten lucky with Steve Nelson being progressive-minded and willing to let my imagination run wild on the station, and I thought, maybe Jim won't extend that same freedom.
However, my concerns proved to be unwarranted, as Jim completely embraced the show and constantly made a point over the years of telling me how much he loved what I did and what I played, regularly making direct mentions to less obvious selections on the playlist. He also actually tried to encourage me to do more theme shows and go deeper into the history of the music that I played. Essentially, he was forever showing his passion for the music, and first and foremost, the stories behind it. I also just found out that he had one of his earliest radio show experiences hosting a show on the station where I first broadcast my voice on the airwaves, WEFT in Champaign, Ill. — the dots continue to connect.
Around 2013, I started having conversations with the station staff about the direction of the show and how things should move forward. We were all questioning if Saturday was the right time slot. We were reviewing ratings, but that wasn't the only deciding factor. This was also around a time when a shift that had been cultivating for a while in hip-hop was finally becoming fully into prominence.
A new era of hip-hop was really beginning to stake its claim, and to be honest, while it wasn't something I was completely in tune with, it was extremely popular. It's not as if I wasn't staying up to date on new music, I was simply still following my theory that if something is very popular, then people know about it, so let me give them what they might be missing.
However, a radio station is built from listenership, and most listeners are not tuning in simply for discovery. Many, if not most, listeners want to hear their favorite artists and songs on the air, and that is understandable.
Once we reviewed all the information, we all agreed that trying a new time slot was a good idea. We also agreed that it made sense to incorporate some of the newest sensations of the time into the mix. At that time, that was artists such as Kendrick Lamar, Odd Future (especially Earl Sweatshirt), Mac Miller, Logic, Joey Badass, Flatbush Zombies, Danny Brown, Childish Gambino, Big K.R.I.T, Chance The Rapper, and others. However, at the same time, there were a lot of other great rising hip-hop artists that weren't getting as much attention as those listed above, both on a local and national level. I didn't want to neglect artists like Oddisee, Open Mike Eagle, Billy Woods, Elucid, Rapsody, Metasota, Greg Grease, Jonwayne, Homeboy Sandman, deM atlaS (pre-Rhymesayers), Haphduzn, Jorun Bombay, MaLLY, Nitty Scott MC, Dynasty, 7even Thirty, Lioness.
All of this great new music also signaled a need to focus on it and perhaps decrease the more-balanced mix of the old to the new that I was exploring on Redefinition Radio. With all the changes we decided on, even though they made sense, it no longer felt like what I envisioned Redefinition Radio was meant to be. The idea for Redefinition Radio was to share my vision of how to redefine radio — not only by avoiding what was the most popular, but to also go against the idea of radio rotation.
This might be a little known fact, but I was generally against playing the same song more than once on the show. I only did it for a limited amount of songs, and even then, twice was usually the most I'd play those songs. Every week when I was planning the show, I would research all of my previous playlists to see if I had ever played the song on the show before, and only play it again if there was a particular reason to do so, such as a theme show where it fit. Trust me, it was a very tedious process and made putting the show together every week take much longer than usual. That's not just because, over time, I was reviewing years of playlists to make sure I didn't replay songs, but also because it meant that every week I had to do a lot of radio edits on my own to prepare songs for broadcast. That is, until I eventually started working with interns and training them in the art of radio edits, which became a big help.
In any event, all that in mind, all parties involved at the station, myself included, agreed I would lead a new rap show tailored to the changing times. I did feel a bit out of my element with some of the new music, so I was thinking of how to fill that void. Then, a random conversation at the Rhymesayers offices about my challenge provided the solution.
Siddiq and I are known for having pretty epic conversations about music. You could call them debates, but honestly, our tastes aren't that different, but we tend to have different ways of how we get to the same opinion, or very different theories on where we put the most emphasis within our overall tastes. At times, those conversations would get intense, because we are so passionate, but their was also plenty of laughter in those discussions, even in those heated moments. Because of that, there has long-running in-office joke at Rhymesayers that the two of us should have our own reality show, podcast ,or something to that effect.
So, back in 2013, as I was telling Siddiq about my challenge with this new direction, he asked what artists I felt that I hadn't been playing that I should be. He countered most of my examples, noting that those were the artists that I should be playing any way, and at that suggestion, a mini-debate occurred, which lead to a joke that I should bring him to the show and we could debate or musical tastes on-air. We both laughed at the idea, but moments later, we both had a "well now that you mention it" moment. That same night, we talked about what a show co-hosted by us two would sound like. Once we came to the conclusion that it was a solid plan, we pitched it to The Current and they loved the idea. And so, H2 was born.
In the four years of doing H2, I believe the show maintained the representation of what it was intended to be. That said, H2 tried to do a lot with a one-hour slot, and that wasn't easy by any means. The goal of H2 was to give a complete, balanced and inclusive representation of hip-hop to the best of our knowledge and ability. Trying to do that on a weekly basis was additionally difficult while also trying to create a show that flowed well and didn't sound like the playlist was forced. We were trying to be pro-active in playing and supporting the various eras of hip-hop and the various sounds of Hip Hop, as well as making sure to be pro-active in being mindful of being inclusive of gender, ethnicities, and locations, not just in the US, but, to some degree, around the world. Trust me, considering all of that was a lot to think about every week and to try and capture in an hour's time. That is one of the main reasons why the show took so much of my time every week, trying to be as inclusive as possible, but at the same time, knowing we could never please everyone.
That said, over the past few years, I've been heavily reviewing where I'm at in life and my own happiness. When I was sixteen years old, my parents brought me a Roland 505 Drum Machine and almost immediately I was getting people in my neighborhood asking me to make them beats to rap to. Even before that, I was the person who did free Breakdance classes in my parent's driveway for the neighborhood kids. But, once I started to use my fast food job money to buy studio equipment, I would let anyone who would ask come over and record songs, and always do it for free. That evolved in to me helping artists with career guidance and management. That evolved into me starting my own businesses and trying to give opportunities to the people around me who wanted to be involved in the music industry via hip-hop.
Basically, since I was sixteen years old, I've been trying to be helpful to anyone who asked and showed some promise, without slowing down and certainly not stopping, to think about myself and my goals, and ultimately, my happiness. And, I was always doing all of this for people for free, actually, often time at my own expense to help them get started. The amount of things that I have sacrificed and neglected for myself because I have instead, focused on being there for others is unquantifiable. I look back on all of those years, and though I don't have outright regret, I do wonder, what if I had put even a fraction more of that dedication into my own goals. This is especially true because so many of the people that I made those sacrifices for wound up giving up on their own dreams well before I did, or went off and did their own thing, leaving me very little to show for my efforts.
On top of that, in the last several years, I've been going thru a transition of looking at my life as a whole. From that, I've noticed how much of my life has revolved around my work in the music industry, and how that is the way so many people define who I am. That wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't also this warped perception attached to it, which leads people to believe that I'm in positions of power that I truly am not. For one, I don't run Rhymesayers — I simply work there, but I'm hardly involved in any major decisions that the company makes, at least no more than the rest of the senior staff (i.e. I have no decision power in signing artists). However, people seem to think otherwise.
That's even more true for Soundset, in which I have always had very minimal involvement. Then, adding The Current into the mix, and the expectations that artists have for radio support, where I'm only limited to what I can fit into my hour slot per week. And on top of that, I don't believe I'm exaggerating when I say that 95% or more of the artists who I see, or hear about, mentioning that I don't play their music, have never actually sent me their music, or they don't have radio-edited music accessible for me to play. I suppose the expectation is that I'm simply supposed to know about every artist there is and also have the time to edit every song that exists. There just aren't enough hours in the day.
At the end of the day, I have to ask myself, "is this the best use of my time and do I still want to endure the pressures that come along with it all?" I started in radio because I wanted to support artists. In fact, beyond radio, many of my biggest life decisions have been based on that same philosophy. Over and over again, I passed on opportunities for me to make more money or have other life experiences, because I wanted to be supportive of artists and other creative-minded people. But, being in a position now where I feel so much negative energy and pressure to support people's individual efforts and goals, and if I don't support every one of them, then the perception is that I must not want to support the community. That's draining and it's honestly taken its toll, and so I'm working to remove myself from these positions, and the perceived power that is associated with them.
Truth be told, maybe it is time for someone else to take on these tasks and responsibilities and bring a fresh perspective into the mix. I don't leave radio behind feeling bitter or jaded. Instead, I'm content. I've achieved the goals I've set for myself there and I'm ready to move on to other things. As a prominent part of that, I can shift my focus to the things that matter the most to me, and actually for the first time in my life, really think about what makes me happy.
In closing, I want to thank The Current for giving me 12 years of air-time with free reign to share my vision and musical tastes with the world. And, I'd like to give an extra-special shout of appreciation for anyone who listened to Redefinition Radio and/or H2 over the years. Your support and feedback has continued to let radio not only be a creative vessel, but also a therapeutic outlet for me, and for that I'm grateful. For those that want to follow my future adventures, please connect with me on any of the following social medias platforms of your choosing.
Stay connected with Kevin
A note from The Current's Program Director Jim McGuinn:
Like thousands of fans who have listened both to H2 and to Redefinition Radio over the past dozen years, we're sad that Kevin Beacham and Brent "Siddiq" Sayers have decided to stop hosting The Current's H2 radio show. Having Kevin and Siddiq on our airwaves every week has been a thrill and an honor. Their knowledge of hip hop (and funk, soul and a whole lotta other music) is deep and encyclopedic, and listening to H2 was like dropping in on two passionate, funny, smart musicheads sharing a conversation and musical discoveries across the radio dial. We will miss them and their show(s), but they will always be part of The Current family.
So what does this mean for The Current and hip hop? We don't exactly know yet, but we hope it's an opportunity to look at what we do and try to figure out the best way to incorporate the music into the station, and the station into the music. With that in mind, if you've got thoughts on it, from what we should play (or shouldn't), to how we can best serve the music and audience, we'd love to hear from you — let us know via the form below.
Hip Hop on The Current: Your Input
You must be 13 or older to submit any information to Minnesota Public Radio. The personally identifying information you provide will not be sold, shared, or used for purposes other than to communicate with you about things like our programs, products and services. See Terms of Use and Privacy.
