35 ms·

What did you do about it at the time?

by sjtgraham 5mo ago

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
chris_wot 5mo ago
The same thing you did. What sort of question is that?
- sjtgraham 5mo ago
  I didn't know anything about any of the above.
contubernio 5mo ago
Not a reasonable question. All my information was third hand at best. We didn't play Bambaataa, R Kelly or Tupac (convicted rapist) records. That's about all a radio station could do. Can't state what legally speaking were merely rumors on the air without facing problems. All you can do is not support them commercially, which we did.
- lostlogin 5mo ago
  I’d say it is a reasonable question, with a really good answer.
- poisonarena 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  - kstrauser 5mo ago
    This is such an odd hill to die on.
  - dang 5mo ago
    Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and/or flamebait and/or snark? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly; actually a rather shocking amount. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
    - poisonarena 5mo ago
      [flagged]
      - dang 5mo ago
        Your comments have obviously been breaking the site guidelines and those have barely changed over 10+ years.
- _sys49152 5mo ago
  smell test. you ran a show in 92-94 - and you wouldnt play "Bambaataa, R Kelly or Tupac (convicted rapist) records" what key do i push for 'lots of doubt'?
  - contubernio 5mo ago
    We had a whole list of stuff we wouldn't play. R Kelly's first album was around 93 (I can't remember now) and the video of him and the underage girl that initially got him charged was known about at the time. The music and also information about the musicians reached people in the loop somewhat earlier than it reached everyone else. It's also 30+ years ago and details are not easy to remember, but there was no social media or internet. We had pirated cassette tapes and vinyl freebies from the distributors and word of mouth. R Kelly specifically there were djs who played him. This was not a commercial station so we could ban Tupac with no problems and we did. We also thought he was a mediocre rapper. There's lots of revisionism in how people remember things now. For context we were in a big northeastern city with a good range and at the time there was almost no other regular rap programming on the radio (one other show locally). Outside NYC it was very hard to get rap (or even R&B) on the radio except in certain places or in very commercial programming (and then biz market and Beastie boys were maybe the best stuff you could put on the radio). Something like hit 107 in ATL (a very receptive market) started in 1990 and even there rap programming was mostly on college and community stations. We had guest djs beeping swearwords live on turntables while they stole our records because everyone was too high to pay attention. It was very much a bunch of kids into music convincing someone that this music deserved a time slot and one mistake and it all got cancelled. A lot of them were socially conscious and there was a lot of pushback against the misogynistic and gangster stuff but commerce won. We had issues about playing shabba ranks and the like too because of all the homophobia in dancehall. Tupac's case was a tough one because he had fans and defenders.
  - wutangson1 5mo ago
    right! Pac wasn't convicted until December of '94, and the R. Kelly 'tapes' came out in '01. The hilarity of accusing others of revisionism
dbcooper 5mo ago
A friend of mine has worked in TV and film for decades. Many times he has told me about rumoured offenders (typically after they are arrested), but other than avoiding working on productions with them what are his choices? Trying to do a completely ridiculous "citizen's arrest"?

What did you do about it at the time?

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

chris_wot 5mo ago

The same thing you did. What sort of question is that?

sjtgraham 5mo ago
I didn't know anything about any of the above.

contubernio 5mo ago

Not a reasonable question. All my information was third hand at best. We didn't play Bambaataa, R Kelly or Tupac (convicted rapist) records. That's about all a radio station could do. Can't state what legally speaking were merely rumors on the air without facing problems. All you can do is not support them commercially, which we did.

lostlogin 5mo ago
I’d say it is a reasonable question, with a really good answer.
poisonarena 5mo ago
[flagged]
- kstrauser 5mo ago
  This is such an odd hill to die on.
- dang 5mo ago
  Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and/or flamebait and/or snark? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly; actually a rather shocking amount. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
  - poisonarena 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    - dang 5mo ago
      Your comments have obviously been breaking the site guidelines and those have barely changed over 10+ years.
_sys49152 5mo ago
smell test. you ran a show in 92-94 - and you wouldnt play "Bambaataa, R Kelly or Tupac (convicted rapist) records" what key do i push for 'lots of doubt'?
- contubernio 5mo ago
  We had a whole list of stuff we wouldn't play. R Kelly's first album was around 93 (I can't remember now) and the video of him and the underage girl that initially got him charged was known about at the time. The music and also information about the musicians reached people in the loop somewhat earlier than it reached everyone else. It's also 30+ years ago and details are not easy to remember, but there was no social media or internet. We had pirated cassette tapes and vinyl freebies from the distributors and word of mouth. R Kelly specifically there were djs who played him. This was not a commercial station so we could ban Tupac with no problems and we did. We also thought he was a mediocre rapper. There's lots of revisionism in how people remember things now. For context we were in a big northeastern city with a good range and at the time there was almost no other regular rap programming on the radio (one other show locally). Outside NYC it was very hard to get rap (or even R&B) on the radio except in certain places or in very commercial programming (and then biz market and Beastie boys were maybe the best stuff you could put on the radio). Something like hit 107 in ATL (a very receptive market) started in 1990 and even there rap programming was mostly on college and community stations. We had guest djs beeping swearwords live on turntables while they stole our records because everyone was too high to pay attention. It was very much a bunch of kids into music convincing someone that this music deserved a time slot and one mistake and it all got cancelled. A lot of them were socially conscious and there was a lot of pushback against the misogynistic and gangster stuff but commerce won. We had issues about playing shabba ranks and the like too because of all the homophobia in dancehall. Tupac's case was a tough one because he had fans and defenders.
- wutangson1 5mo ago
  right! Pac wasn't convicted until December of '94, and the R. Kelly 'tapes' came out in '01. The hilarity of accusing others of revisionism

dbcooper 5mo ago

A friend of mine has worked in TV and film for decades. Many times he has told me about rumoured offenders (typically after they are arrested), but other than avoiding working on productions with them what are his choices? Trying to do a completely ridiculous "citizen's arrest"?