Young listeners seek hip-hop radio
10:29 PM 5/03/03
Tom Alesia Wisconsin State Journal

JANESVILLE - Moments before noon on a quiet Tuesday, large-size DJ Triple X bursts into his typical jumpy on-air wordplay.

"Woooooo! Whoooooo!" he hollers after playing a Busta Rhymes song. "The new Hot 105.9 'Blazin' hip hop.' This is DJ Triple X: the man, the myth, thee legend. I'm gainin' momentum like a snowball. Started out small, came down the mountain, now I'm a snowman."

He never pauses more than a wink. On hip-hop radio station Hot 105.9, everything comes at the listener with the urgency of a fire call.

DJ Triple X, who has a huge laugh, then entices WKPO (Hot 105.9) listeners with a contest, offering "da bomb a - - prize pack."

All this, straight outta ... Janesville?

If anyone needed proof that hip-hop has infiltrated mainstream American, go to Hot 105.9's studios at downtown Janesville's One Parker Place building. That's the headquarters of southwestern Wisconsin's hip-hop radio capital.

Anyone assuming the urban-based music can't cross racial boundaries is stuck in Vanilla Ice's heyday. With a black population of 1.3 percent, according to the 2000 census, Janesville may have the nation's smallest minority group with a prominent hip-hop station on the city's radio dial.

Hot 105.9 is a regional station; it reaches from Rockford to Madison, where it enjoys devoted young audiences of teens and twentysomethings even if the signal crackles at times in Madison. That leaves Hot 105.9 a distant competitor in the Madison-area Arbitron ratings against the city's radio station mainstays among all listeners.

What separates Hot 105.9, owned by Good Karma Broadcasting of Beaver Dam, is its playlist. Yes, a few hip-hop songs slip onto Z104, but Hot 105.9 delivers nothing but beat-heavy hip-hop and urban rap. It's a radical departure from what Madison listeners hear on more conservative commercial stations.

Yet stations officials offer repeated examples of hip-hip becoming mainstream.

"Toyota's using Nelly music to sell cars," says Dan "Hollywood" Hunt, the station's program director and late-afternoon disc jockey.

Hot 105.9 general manager Keith Williams, 28, notes how rapper Jay-Z became the first non-athlete to sign a deal with Reebok.

"Those shoes are selling everywhere," Williams says. "That's the power of hip-hop."

Later, he adds, "We're justifying less and less why we're playing the music we're playing."

Unlike many other radio stations, Hot 105.9 openly courts audiences in Rockford, Rock County and Madison. That means advertisers range from a Beloit nightclub to a Stoughton jewelry store.

Changed from a rock station to an urban contemporary outlet five years ago, the Janesville-based WKPO was originally called Power 105.9 and offered a wide playlist but lacked any focused programming.

Enter Hunt in December 2001 as program director. He honed the playlist, helped revise the on-air staff (it now features a morning team called Big Moon and Miss Jennifer) and repeatedly played certain contemporary urban hits the way pop-music stations emphasize a few hits.

The result showcased certain artists and, in turn, boosted their album sales.

"Elektra Records thanked me because they had never seen sales in this area for hip-hop acts," Hunt says, noting boosts for Missy Elliott and Fabolous. "We're a fun, hip, young, cutting-edge radio station."

With Z104's maintaining its long-standing high ratings, station official Mike Ferris, FM operations manager for Clear Channel Madison, didn't seem to mind having Hot 105.9 as competition.

"(Hot 105.9) certainly has a niche format. Z104 is mass appeal hit music that plays hits from all genres," Ferris says. "But it's kind of nice to have (Hot 105.9) in the market. It brings in more variety. It helps dispel the myth that radio is bland. You have smooth jazz, country, four different varieties of rock, 3 different varieties of standards or oldies. There are two public radio stations."

Hot 105.9 will continue to push its freshness. It has used the moniker "new Hot 105.9" since January 2002. Yes, Hot 105.9 has been "new" for 16 months.

"And you'll hear that for a long time to come," Williams says. "It's a way to brand the station. You also have new listeners tuning in every day."

DJ Triple X is in hip-hop radio for the long haul. After working in retail sales at Coconuts Records in Chicago, Triple X got an on-air job at Hot 105.9 last year.

"Whatever station gave me the chance, I was going to take it," he says. "If it was in Alaska, I would have taken it."

Triple X also disputes any attempt to pigeonhole hip-hop's audience.

"I know urban guys who like Coldplay," Triple X says, mentioning the lush British band. "People get caught up in that stereotype that it's 'black music' or 'white music.' I have things in my CD collection that people wouldn't believe. I listen to (hard rockers) Nickelback. Music is made to cross trends. People need to wake up."