FEATURE PIECE
The 40-Year Legacy of Hip Hop at WKCR by August Phillips, McKenna Roberts, Ted Schmiedeler, Heather Hayes, & Isabelle Fishbein
I
n summer 1983, Ovid Santoro arrived at that there was “no way that it was a foregone Columbia and joined WKCR in his first conclusion that this was gonna break out.” Early semester as a student. As he began regularly on, some members of the WKCR Board resisted hosting Transfigured Night on Tuesday and having hip hop played on the station, and Santoro Thursday nights, he would often play hip hop noted the racist undertones in that resistance. records and host “It’s like, wait, we play local rappers and jazz all the time. And DJs in the station. he was just against Forty years later, the culture,” Santoro Santoro’s shows are said about one Board the earliest instance member. But Santoro of hip hop being saw the emerging played on WKCR, genre of hip hop as and made WKCR certainly fitting the one of the earliest description of “New radio stations in the Music" (Transfigured world to regularly Night's department), air hip hop. Since and received support then, hip hop has from other members become a massively of the Board. important cultural During his 1-5 a.m. force and the most shows—a time slot Ovid Santoro, Jam Master Jay, D.M.C. of Run DMC, and Lyor popular genre of central to the history Cohen at an anti-apartheid protest at Columbia in 1985. music in the United Photo by Lori Traikos / Courtesy of Ovid Santoro of hip hop at WKCR— States. The history Santoro began of hip hop at WKCR is likewise long and complex, including records from New York City artists and parallels much of the music’s growth. he was familiar with. But although rappers and In advance of WKCR’s November broadcast DJs were desperate for radio airtime, there were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the genre, relatively few hip hop recordings available to play this feature details four decades of hip hop at at the time: “I had like 50 records, maybe, max,” WKCR and the students, DJs, and musicians who Santoro said. Instead, Santoro’s shows were a made it all possible. free-form mix of hip hop, new music, spoken Santoro began playing hip hop on Transfigured word, and a variety of guests in the station with Night largely due to the time he spent at New York him. While these were often other Columbia City clubs, like Danceteria and Disco Fever, and students, Santoro also consistently had some of the artists he met and interacted with in them. At the most important figures in early hip hop on his the time, hip hop did not have a strong presence show, including the Cold Crush Brothers, Afrika in the mainstream, and Santoro recalled Bambaataa, Whodini, and Grandmaster Melle
4 OnAir · November 2023
