Freestyle is dead here in South Florida

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I tell you this... I lived in South Florida for 23 years. Miami, Fort Lauderdale and southern Palm Beach County.

I have been here in northern VA since the end of 1998 and I loved Power 96 when I was back home. ADA1984 I have been clubbin' in that area since I was 14 starting at Nepenthe in fort Lauderdale. I have had many a night where Kid Kurry would be hosting a Power96 Friday night party and he is a jerk. He always had that too god for my audience attitude and I still hear that now from people. I believe he took over as program director there at Power96 in the mid to late 90's.

I remember I would tune in over the internet and catch Freestyle Fridays and the live broadcasts from any number of the hundreds of clubs South Floridians enjoy. DJ Laz would be spinning and he would throw together an awesome freestyle mix.

It's a shame South Florida has such strong economic and cultural connections with New York and many of the artists have lived there on and off again. We need DJ Felix Slamin' Samba back and DJ Laz with all his talents and diverse interests. He has done many Bass and rap CD's but these people including the program directors need to remember the vote of confidence and subsequent following they had were because they always did the Freestyle community justice.

Talk about a great place for Freestyle. All the ingredients are there a growing movie industry, a huge Latino population. Lots of European and Canadian tourists. Couple all that with literally hundreds of clubs and a revolving NYC crowd that changes with the seasons and I can't see why Freestyle has declined there. Oh and let's not forget the Winter Music Conference a huge dance industry event.

All that said I will never forget watching acts like Expose, Trinere, Brenda K Star, Coro, and Shannon take the satge and turn the heat up at any event.
 
Yes, I've heard to many horror storys about Kid Curry, I remember back in late 1994 early 1995 when he left the station, and out of state for about 6 months to a year, and A guy named Leo took kid Curry's position, I remember Leo had the lunch mixes going for two hours instead of one. I thougt Kid Curry was gone for good, but then he came back, and then they kicked Leo out, I heard Leo than moved to a AM spanish station. Even though Kid Curry is a jerk and is all about himself, I thought he was really a good radio personality. like alot of night club DJ's, I don't get that about some DJ's, Some of them think they are on top of the world and treat people like the scum on the bottom of there foot because they have a reputation. They are human just like anybody on this earth, they have their advantages and disaventages..There is a DJ that I know is like that and I just give him a look like, dude get over your self. I'm a DJ myself and I treat people on how they treat me......
 
"Power Ninety - What" "Who"???..... Never heard of it.

Ciro Llerena...now that's a blast from the past. Other than Salsa 98.3, FS is no longer heard on the Miami airwaves. I've switched over to Coast 97.3 & RMF 97.9 to listen to 80s retro....the only thing close to FS that we can enjoy down here. Also, I've noticed that I've gotten older (27yrs) mentally. As much as I adore FS, I tend to listen more to soft 80s rock/retro. I think my wife will leave me if I play my Phil Collins DVD (Live & Loose in Paris) one more time.

My point is that, for me, I greatly miss the FS concerts & would pay anything to see one. But I admit, that lately I've been listening a bit more to relaxing, soft music ideal for relieving (work) stress.


Don't get me wrong, I love FS no less, I'm just getting old.

I'll shut up now
 
You Know What Showing all the Florida Fellaz Allot of Love and respect . Holla if ya here me
 
people freestyle is dead down here,. ive been down here 9 days now. havent heard it even once.

unless it went somewhere else another station it dead down here,. and i dont think youll see it coming back miami is more a transe town now,.

mostly transe music,. or hip hop,. it seems to me freestyle people down here are in for a long lonely cold ride,. cuase it seems as if the kids down here have been taking over by hip hop.

where as at least our kids up there in nyc,. are little hip hop dogs too,.

but they also love freestyle strangely enough,. either way freestyle people down here are in for a long ride,. i dont see anyone here playing freestyle,.

dont care either way cuase im going back to nyc this week,. and there freestyle is alive and well,.

but for how long i wonder,.???

anyway this gives my arguement more fire,. we have to orgnize freestyle people everywhere,. cuase freestyle seems to come and go,.
 
RBONUC29,weather its dead or not is not the issue,keeping it going by DJ'S,ARTIST,PRODUCERS, or by the peep's who enjoy it is whats it about any negative feed back by peep's who only visit somewhere for a short time, is obvisly not educated well enough on what goes on here in florida, i mean, can u tell me what station has the best ratings? can u tell me what stations been around the longest?, what music here is requested more than others?what artist,producers,or dj's moved to florida because of the music ind.? i gonna say NO you dont relize what's doing here in the music busn. if you visit,move, travel to a city or state and u dont hear what u want(in the short time you've been there) then make it happen, WITHOUT giving it negative feed back.........vapro
 
Vapro is right, you're obviously not looking at the right places. Hell, when I was in Miami back in March, I heard freestyle being played on Party 93.1, granted it wasn't a lot, but nonetheless it was being played. I just looked at their website and they just played Stevie B "Spring Love" last hour.
 
They play a freestyle once in a blue moon and they don't mix it. the freestyle songs they play are the pop ones like, Will To Power - Dreamin, Stevie B - spring Love. Now they do play some mid 1990's like, K5 - Passion, Seems to be hot on that station, sometimes they play Lina Santiago - Show me (Feels so good), Rockell - I fell in love, and Kromozone project - Take my love. If I knew they were gonna play a freestlye song in 20 mins, I could almost predict witch song they would play....
 
what they did to power 96 and mega 103 is a crime punishable by death
but salsa 98.3 definately kicks ass at 12:30 - 1:00 in the p.m. everyday and 12:00 to 1:00 on friday.

i have built up a collection of 300 freestyle songs on my hard drive and began mixing myself off my pc using pcdj or atomix mp3 its the ONLY way to get my daily freestyle mix and to keep the dream alive...
 
Again...its not dead here if u listen to the Spanish station Salsa 98.3.

Regardless, my house iz alwayz pumpin' oldskool beats from da past, not just all Freestyle, but oldskool fav's like:

Starpoint
Vanity-6 / Apollonia
Sheila E.
The System
DeBarge
Teena Marie
Pointer Sisters
S.O.S. Band
Evelyn Champagne King
Silver Convention
A Taste Of Honey
Tavares
Melba Moore
Santa Esmeralda
The Whispers
Irene Cara
Timex Social Club
Planet Patrol
Chaka Khan
Five Starr
Stevie Nicks
Sheena Easton
The Gap Band
The Mary Jane Girls
Klmaxx
Madonna (oldskool)
Lime
The Romantics
Pat Benatar
Al B. Sure
Tara Kemp
Tracie Spencer
Jomanda
Adventures Of Stevie V
Daisy Dee
Soul II Soul
Kwamé & The New Beginning
Salt N' Pepa
L.L. Cool J. (oldskool)
Deee-Lite
Sybil
The Supremes - & all Motown classics
Mozart
Beethoven
Spanish Music,
....& The list goes on, & on, & on!!!!
I jus' LOVE music!!! As u can see, my house is a happy house. 🙂 - lol.
But Freestyle is my #1!!!
So if I dont hear on da radio, oh well, I get it at home.🙂
 
Hip hop has hurt freestyle. It has risen in popularity to the point where most CHR/Rhythmic stations have dropped all or most of their dance music in order to squeeze out as many ratings points as possible. Power 96, after it dropped its dance music, rose to some of its highest ratings ever, infact in the Spring 2003 book Power 96 overtook WEDR-FM to become the number 1 station in Miami. Unfortunately there are too many people who like hip hop but don't like anything else, so lots of these stations want to keep it real and only play hip hop. There are only a few stations in the country that can get away with playing hip hop AND dance. One example is Wild 94.9 in San Francisco which had higher ratings that the other CHR station KMEL which was all hip hop. Unfortunately now even Wild 94.9 has dropped its dance music. It's a trend that has been going on for a while.
Now with that said, hip hop is not the only thing hurting freestyle. Believe it or not, dance music is hurting freestyle too. Dance music has evolved into a form that has moved away from hip hop. Think now... if you hear today's music... say Chingy - "Right Thur" going into "Sandstorm" by Darude after that, and then compare it to what you might have heard several years ago (hip hop/ rap song) going into something like "Funky Little Beat"... which of the 2 scenarios sound better, flow better, etc.? Really putting Sandstorm next to Right Thur seems out of place. While I hate to see less dance music being played on CHR/Rhythmic stations, if I were a PD and my job depended on the ratings, I would do the same thing. Dance music has evolved to the point where it needs its own station, separate from the hip hop. However, there is not nearly enough quality dance music out there to sustain a 100% dance music station ratings-wise. That is why most of the dance stations in the country are suffering from terrible ratings (that combined with totally incompetant program/music directors running most of today's dance stations in the U.S., KTU being one of the few stations that has some clue [and ratings too]). Now where dance music is hurting freestyle actually comes with many of the DJ's and program directors out there who are into the harder hitting, more electronic sounding underground dance music. Pretty much every dance station in the country is doing it wrong. I have had the chance to listen to Party 92.7(San Francisco), Energy (Phoenix), Party 93.1(Miami), and others, and they are all screwing things up. They are way to much on the underground sound and club sound and euro sound, but HELLO GUYS!!... this is radio, not the clubs or Europe. They just don't get it. The stations need to vary the sound. Now earlier when I said I would eliminate dance music on CHR/Rhythmic stations, that sounded bad... however if I was programming a dance station AND MY JOB DEPENDED ON IT, I would make sure I added some freestyle, especially to stations like Party 93.1 in Miami and Party 92.7 in San Francisco. It is so funny how in both of these cities, before these dance stations came along, freestyle got major airplay in both of these cities.
Back to what I was saying about freestyle and radio, most stations would benefit in adding some freestyle, both to break up the monotony and headache-causing pounding that most house, trance, and techno bring and to bring some familiarity. It cracks me up to see how some of these dance stations try to flaunt the fact they are "cutting edge" playing music from Europe, progressive stuff, and talking about "famous" DJ's. You know what? Sure there is a following for that type of stuff, but I guarantee you that 99% of Miami doesn't know who Derrick Carter, Donald Glaude and some of these other people are. Most of Miami just wants to hear good music. They don't care that your station is "on top" of some of the newest "cutting edge" music. What these stations need to do (and what labels need to produce more of) are songs like "Gotta Get Thru This" - Daniel Bedingfield, "Heaven" - DJ Sammy, "I'll Fly With You" Gigi D'Agostino, + freestyle and other vocal dance, and stop playing so much of this often hard hitting, repetitive, vocal-less, monotonous crap (and yes I am a fan of dance music in general not just freestyle).
Here is another problem... we only have a handful of people controlling practically all the dance stations in America, so we are subject to suffer from their preferences/biases. Even though some of these stations are gone now, Energy 92.7/5 in Chicago, Energy in Phoenix/Flaggstaff, Party in Miami, Party in Orlando, KXDC in Denver, Party 92.7 San Francisco were all run or influenced by only A COUPLE of people. Sometimes maybe 3 of those stations were pretty much programmed/influenced by one person at one time!
At the same time, there is where some hope lies. We must realize that this more underground and non-freestyle dance music is preferred by these few companies/ program directors/ and club DJ's/ hardcore dance fans but is not ideal for your average listener (which most of these stations are ignoring, which is stupid because they could gain many more listeners). We just happen to have the wrong people running these stations right now. I had the chance to work at Power 105.5 in Sacramento, a dance station basically mom & pop owned so not under the influence of the some of the above program directors/companies I mentioned above. We went through 3 different program directors, and a couple of music directors... and guess what? THEY ALL PLAYED FREESTYLE! So what I'm saying is that the dance stations in the U.S. suck right now due to being controlled or influenced by a handful of people. And that could easily change. I know there were a couple of possibilities of a dance station happening in Sacramento (again) and Fresno. They didn't happen, but there was some planning going on and I can tell you they were not going to be under the influence of the people I mentioned above running today's dance stations, and they were planning on playing a significant amount of freestyle. I was tentatively offered a music director position at a possible new station (it still may happen) and I know the person who asked me to work with him would play freestyle, and I would play it for sure. I'm not just saying I would play it because I personally like freestyle, but because I know it would help optimize the ratings. I saw what it helped to do in Sacramento for Power 105.5 (our ratings were even higher than San Francisco's Party 92.7 ratings which is supposed to be a MUCH MUCH MUCH bigger dance town than Sacramento, and were higher Denver, Chicago, Phoenix's stations ever were). It's funny, because I never held the official title of PD, but I gaurantee you I could outprogram practically every dance station in the country and get higher ratings (minus KTU because they are doing things better than all the other dance stations). There are some stations that have had some degree of success like WQSX, KCJZ, WPYO, and Party 93.1 Miami(which has a monster singal by the way) for a while (although even at its earlier higher ratings I heard they were not so happy about things). Just a side note, it's not just not playing freestyle that hurts these stations, it's not playing good, catchy, high quality dance music of any kind.
OK, I think I'm done with my novel...
 
Here's the deal. I'm from Fort Myers, FL and have several friends who are local club DJ'd, as well as radio DJ's. If it were up to them, they would play Freestyle music all day and night. It's the club owners, and station owners that are taking that power away. When I was growing up we had a staion from Naples, FL that played nothing but Freestyle. They were forced to change format a couple of years later due to new ownership. A lot of DJs just dont have the freedom to play what they want(or what the people want)like they used to. I dont see that getting any better in the future unfortunately.

April
 
I don't really think it's the dance music that is taking over freestyle. I think it's the younger generation that likes that awful rap music format, I'm sorry to say that the R&B and rap format, in my eyes is not even dance able, and when I see people dance to it, I think they look stupid. In the gay scene thats the kind of music the younger lesbians like. I'm a night club house DJ in the gay scene and the club I work at, we get about 40 lesbians out of 150 guys. I play about a half an hour of R&B and the rest of the night, gay house tribal, Etc. music. I'm there to satisfy the guys, Because alot of the younger lesbians in their 20's are very cheap and don't like to spend money, like to fight, and are very ubnoxious when their drunk (Excuse my spelling if I'm a little off) and if the lesbians had it their way they would want the r&b format all night long. I know the club owners don't want it and I don't want it. now back to the subject. Dance music, that format, I noticed nowadays such as house, trance, Etc. leans more towards the gay scene and in the clubs...I'll tell you the stuff party 93.1 will not be played by me in a club. lot of the music they play is way to soft, and trancey, like these songs, Heaven, Boys of summer, and the remake of Duran duran's Ordinary world, I like the orginal one by duran duran much better, I think those trancey songs have a awful cheap sound to them, but thats my opinion. Who knows what will hold in the future for the old school freestyle for radio station to airplay it. I know there is one station called salsa98.3 here in south florida. Their Dj's Suck. When mixing, they loop, repeating a few seconds of the song over and over to mix in the next song, (Gross) I think that sounds awful, and you can really notice when they do that. Also when mixing disco and retro, every other song is disco then 80's, They don't go together. They need to do the formats in sets, But they do play alot of good old disco, retro and freestyle......Adam
 
I Bring Freestyle Music 2 Miami

Besides Salsa 98.3, the only way to hear freestyle music in miami is when i drive by, haha! I'll take you guys wayyyyy back! Its too bad my speakers aren't big enough for everyone to hear. Next time you see a silver civic with girls airbrushed on it playing "You're Too Good For Me, Honey Can't You See!", thats me! For all you old school freestyle freaks thats The Rhythem Section, local florida artist. It seems like clubs keep popping up or changing their names in miami, hopefully one that plays freestyle will pop up, so far it just bannana Joes in Coral Gables, thursday nights i believe. Check it out!



Freestylejay
(Your Miami Freestyle Connection)
 
Well at least PArty 931 is now making some effort! Is anyone going to the Freestyle Concert in Coconut Grove (Miami) next Saturday night. I actually won tix (caller #9). Look forward to finally hearing some good music, and it will be a nice antidote to MTV and all the rap stuff they play! Sergio
 
well 93.1 plays alot of freestyle in the mourning till about the afternoon n sometimes after midnite....
 
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