![]() ![]() Sports Arena to see Uncle Jamm’s Army, a DJ crew that boomed bass-heavy cuts. Soon after arriving in Los Angeles, Mack’s sister took him to a packed L.A. Outside of hip-hop, Mack worked to increase Latino listenership by programming freestyle music, a subset of dance music that rose to popularity in the mid- to late 1980s.īut his most essential creation was a group of DJs called the Mixmasters, who brought intricately woven mixes to the airwaves beginning in 1984. After playing records from hip-hop stars across the country, Mack brought many of them to the city to perform as part of the station’s “Friday Night Lives” series, from LL Cool J to UTFO to Queen Latifah to KRS-One. I got World Class Wrecking Cru to be the opening act, and then we brought everyone to Eve After Dark that night.”īut with waves of new listeners tuning their dials to KDAY, the successes drowned out the detractors. “KDAY had a contest, and whatever school won got a free concert with New Edition. “One of the first shows World Class Wrecking Cru did was at Fremont High School, opening for New Edition,” Williams remembered. It was the old-school version of influencer culture. In addition to programming the more established East Coast acts, Mack would bring on neighborhood artists to promote themselves live on air, and, in the process, spread the word about KDAY to friends and family. KDAY became the country’s first radio station to play hip-hop on a full-time basis. ![]() “So we met again that afternoon, and this time he says, ‘We’ll give it a try.’ And that thing exploded.” “Everybody knew that if you asked for anything after lunch, he’d agree to it, because he’d just went out and had three drinks,” Mack laughed. But later that day, Mack found a KDAY boss willing to give it a shot. When he first took the burgeoning genre to the station’s brass, however, they were skeptical radio execs viewed hip-hop as a novelty, if that. Mack’s secret? The music director rolled down his window on a drive through South-Central and heard rap music: Run-D.M.C., Kurtis Blow and the Sugarhill Gang, to be specific. Celebrating the songs, artists and innovations that changed the course of popular culture.artists like Tom Browne, Cameo, Frankie Smith’s ‘Double Dutch Bus.’” ![]() electro group World Class Wrecking Cru and owner of the Eve After Dark nightclub in Compton. “They had a younger demographic,” said Lonzo Williams, promoter of the L.A. When Mack came aboard as music director, KDAY, which first signed on the air in 1948, ranked fifth out of five urban-format radio stations in Los Angeles. ![]() White’s words were a striking premonition. “‘Control this city, don’t let this city control you.’” “‘You’re gonna do just fine,’” Mack recalled White telling him. “I was like ‘What?’ and he said, ‘Man, I’m not laughing at you, I’m just feeling you. “I still had that Texas twang, and as I was talking, Barry just started laughing,” Mack said. Recently hired as the music director for KDAY-AM (1580), Mack, 23, was there on a direct invitation from singer Ray Parker Jr., who owned the studio, and found himself talking with Parker and famed soulman Barry White soon after he walked in. A week after moving to Los Angeles from Houston in 1983, Greg Mack wandered into Ameraycan Recording Studios in North Hollywood, ready to shake some hands at an industry party. ![]()
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