RIP HOT97

Earlier in 2025 MTV got their TV turned off and now Hot97 has their plane landed. They didn’t fully announce the station being shutdown but the writing is on the wall. Growing up as a Foundational Black American child in the South Bronx during the 90s was equivalent to living in a modern day 24/7 365 viral live stream but with little to no electronics. You might have had a few folks with beepers, and an even smaller amount of people with cellphones. Back in those days you could and you would see people in public listening to their Walkman’s or CD players but even that was still kind of rare to be honest. Me personally I was known to keep a Gameboy on me.

The one piece of technology that was on every block in the 90s, in every borough was a stereo, radio, boombox. Every block and every boombox had different stations. In the neighborhoods throughout the city where the culture was being curated we had Hot97 rocking! The record labels were producing fire and the Hot97 on air Dj’s and personalities like Wendy Williams, Ed Lover, Dr.Dre, Miss Jones, Funk Flex, Red Alert, DJ Enuff, Cipha Sounds, Angie Martinez and others did a great job speaking to the city. Outside of the Hot97 on air personalities that made the station hot there was also the artist that would go up to the station to freestyle and chop it up. Another great thing that Hot97 had going for them was the formerly famous and fun Summer Jam. 

With all of the amazing, wonderful memories that Hot97 has made for the city of New York and the genre of Hip-Hop music there was a lot they did wrong. Before we get into the most important thing that they did wrong we have to highlight that they were up there harboring an anti-Black suspected white supremacist Patty Duke. Patty Duke or however the fuck you spell his name was one of the white boys that was involved with the klan that lynched Usif Hawkins. Also on Sunday evening’s they had some sort of Jamaican show where they would play Caribbean music for like an hour or two. I would listen for as long as I could to that show but I would never really listen to the whole thing. That Jamaican show would come on late and I had school the next day and plus there was like two shows on tv that I used to watch around that time. Anyway years later I found out one of them Niggas from that Reggae show was a white boy and boy was I pissed tf off!

There’s a bunch of reason why NY record labels fell off. There’s reasons why not only Hot97 fell off but radio in general. Technology played a big part the downfall and demise of a lot of former prominent mediums. The main factor in Hot97s demise wasn’t technology. It was hiring E Bro as program director, hiring Peter Rosenberg, and hiring too many white boys and Mexicans and other Hispanics. It’s good and I’ll agree that it’s necessary that all industries have diversity of sorts but there should be some standards. 

Hip-Hop and R&B are FBA creations and in retrospect were able to comprehend that they hired a halfbreed to be the overseer of the Negro airwaves because they knew he had a duel allegiance and wouldn’t empower any FBAs and he didn’t.

Anyway fuck Hot97 them Niggas is dead and Melrose Radio is officially New York’s and the worlds #1 home for Hip-Hop and R&B