I'd use my platform here at XXL to let the world know that, if anything bad happens to me, it was probably Jay-Z's fault, but the post would probably just disappear. And then something bad would happen to me. Jay-Z is sneaky like that.

Charlemagne the God had to find out the hard way. He let Beanie Sigel come on his show on Philly radio station 100.3 The Beat and air Jay out, and now he's out of a job. Coincidence? In a fascinating interview posted to this site yesterday, Charlemagne won't say, probably because he's desperate for another job in radio. It's like when you curse out your boss at White Castle and walk off the job, then you don't put White Castle on your application at K-Mart and just hope they don't ask what you've been up to for the past year or so. (We've all done this before, right?)

Of course he tries to make it seem as if he could give a rat's ass about whether or not he works in radio again, but you can tell how desperate he is, when he runs down a list of his lucrative side hustles.

And I quote:

Put it like this, the radio station is just one check. There’s a hundred checks coming from a lot of different places so I’m just staying active. Me and [comedian] Lil Duval still doing the Hood State of the Union webisodes, I’m still writing for Ozone magazine, I’m still a street correspondent for Wendy Williams’ TV show, and I got a book coming out on Wendy’s book imprint next year called Pull Your Damn Pants Up.

Lil' Duval, anyone? Me neither. The world's most accurate encyclopedia says he was a semi-finalist on BET's "Coming to the Stage." And then there's a list of shitty southern rap albums, but it isn't clear to me if he's also a rapper, and this is a list of album's he's appeared on, or what. He must have written this entry himself. Shit, it could just be a list of his favorite albums. I might need to go to the discussion page for his entry and question whether he's notable enough for his own entry in Wikipedia, like yours truly.

I wonder what Ozone magazine pays. I might need to resurrect my short lived print column, in which I gave some sick bastard the idea of banging broads by pretending to hold a casting session for XXL's Eye Candy section. (If only I had that kind of initiative.) I'd even consider doing it on a pro bono basis, to increase my chances of seeing Julia Beverly's cans in person. I could bring some (read the only) real literary credibility to that magazine, and maybe she'd want to thank me in person. A man can dream, right?

But I digress.

The theory that Jay-Z called the TIs on Charlemagne seems reasonable enough, in that hip-hop radio in general can't be making very much money for them. A mere matter of days before Charlemagne the God was let go from 100.3 The Beat in Philly, an entire hip-hop station here in St. Louis, also called 100.3 The Beat, was dropped like a bad habit. The entire staff was up and fired and replaced with Halloween music. And then once Halloween was over, it switched over to Christmas music.

Who knows what they're gonna play once Christmas is over. But I'm assuming it won't be hip-hop, since they let go all of their hip-hop people. I might never have even realized 100.3 The Beat was gone, except I read about it on A to Z, the music blog of the Riverfront Times, the local equivalent of the Village Voice. As of this past Friday, the comments section there was filled with people complaining, in all caps (natch), about how now that you can't hear rap music on the radio, they're gonna have to go back to killing one another. It'd be funnier, if I didn't live so close to some of the shittier parts of the city.

Charlemagne the God claims that 100.3 The Beat in Philly's numbers went way up after the interview with Beanie Sigel, but it may not have translated into much in the way of additional revenue. These radio stations make their money from advertising, which is why there are so many stations aimed at adults, even though the best music is made by and for young people. (Er, it used to be.) By law, you can't advertise alcohol on stations with too many young listeners. And these companies try to avoid stations with too many black listeners, since black people don't have as much money to spend, especially in a recession.

A hip-hop station, then, must be essentially worthless. Who cares how many people tuned in to Charlemagne's interview with Beanie Sigel, when the vast majority of them probably carry those EBT debit cards, and hence can only buy certain brands anyway? It's a little known fact that 90% of black children will be fed by food stamps at some point or another. I read it just now on Alex Jones' Prison Planet. To think, I'm one of the few black people to never get so much as a free wedge of cheese from the government. I'm not sure whether to be proud, or jealous.

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