Word: urban
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...touts as its "new" music is almost always at least four months out of date. In a recent Globe article, industry expert Lionel Ridenour, senior vice president of black music for Arista Records, explained this lag as a consequence of the fact that Boston does not have a "major urban FM" to go along with Jam'n's "crossover format...
Which leads to an obvious question: Are Boston's demographics such that it can support a major FM-urban station? Many of the cities which have two competing urban stations, like Chicago, New York, Washington and Baltimore, are largely minority, while Boston, to say the least, is predominantly white...
...this reason, a major urban radio station is Boston is desperately needed as a cultural institution, as a place where Boston's highly insulated white majority could meet the city's largely ignored black minority...
...predominantly black city, hip hop and soul music, when played over the radio, can have the effect of taking the difficulties of urban life and depersonalizing them, making them a communal problem rather than an individual failure. As Ulf Hannerz points out in his 1969 ethnography of Washington, D.C., Soulside, "the ghetto cultural apparatus also assures the members of the audience that their personal troubles are only reflections of the public issues of the community...
...mixed city like Boston, an urban radio has less potential to become a home for black community but more potential to serve as a sounding board for black concerns to suburban white listeners. A successful FM urban radio station in Boston could become a significant community institution, a meeting place for the two sides of the racial divide...