Hot 97 ( WQHT, at 97.1 FM) is the most listened to hip-hop/rap station in NYC, in addition to co-producing a popular, daily hip-hop video countdown show on BET. Finally, it seemed like the station was standin' up for something beyond profit and playlists, when Hot 97 gave the go-ahead for the airing of PSA put together by underground hip-hop legend Boots Riley of The Coup.
The plug was for the 11/2 Union Square demonstration against the war in Iraq and the Bush Administration's policies. But the short audio clip, World Can't Wait, Drive Out the Bush Regime, never aired. Minutes before the spot was about to be played, Hot 97's parent company, Emmis Corporation, yanked it from the air. Boots would have dropped' some real (political) science, but radio listeners never got to hear it:
Come on, you seen the pictures.
Bush made torture into a sport and justifies it.
You saw Iraq destroyed by a war based on lies.
We all watched Bush leave people to die in New Orleans and treat people like criminals
This regime is what's criminal.
The Bush Regime is out to remake the world.
Unending war, a devastated environment, forced religion, no right to abortion, no dissent, no critical thought.
We have to stop this now. If we don't we will be forced to accept it.
The future we get is up to us.
Testify, Boots. We're listening.
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Silja J.A. Talvi, a senior editor at In These Times, is an investigative journalist and essayist with credits in many dozens of newspapers and magazines nationwide, including The Nation, Salon, Santa Fe Reporter, Utne, and the Christian Science Monitor.
