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4/13/2009   A lot of people want to get into the radio game, can you tell people what it takes to become Hip-Hop music director for a radio station? Paying your dues and having the ear for quality music. I basically have free rain to do whatever I want to do at the radio station Hip-Hop-wise because the station staff trusts me. I worked really hard to get to that point and it feels good to still be there after 3.5 years and everyone is still happy with the job I have done. DJ Lyvwyr and M. Holloway (2 DJ's at the station with me) were the only 2 DJs playing Hip-Hop on the station before I got there, and now we have like 10 Hip-Hop DJs, so it's been a blessing being able to build up the Hip-Hop there. Do you have a role model? I can't pick one person but there have been a lot of people who have influenced me to be the person I am. I don't really look up to anyone in terms of a role model but there are qualities in certain people that I admire. I admire Mayne and Dru for their work ethic. They are only a few years older than I am but are 100% focused on work and because of that, they have been real successful. I admire Just Blaze because of his humility. He is easily one of the greatest producers of all time but takes time for everybody. When you're young, such as I am you can get caught up in all of the extra attention you get when you are on the right road to success and sometimes the attention gets to people's heads. One thing Just has taught me, whether he knows this or not, is that you can never burn bridges and you always have to respect everyone, so you can't let anything go to your head or walk around with a big ego; always remain approachable. I admire Sean Rock from E1 (formerly Koch records) and Rich Dollaz because they were and still are always around to help me out and teach me things about radio and the industry and they are really respected by their peers. They taught me that I need to make sure and help educate others instead of complaining about how uneducated people are in this industry. Both of these fellas are always on their A game. I admire Rashad Tyler (Kevin "KC" Cossom's manager) because of his patience. He does not rush anything and he taught me to take my time and get something as perfect as possible before releasing it to the public. Quality over Quantity. How important is college radio to up and coming artists who can't get major airplay? College radio is extremely important. When you hear someone say "college radio" people assume it's a radio station broadcast over a few acres and only throughout the college, and 99.9% of the time that is not the case. My station broadcasts all over Orlando and metro Orlando, My boys at Rutgers college radio broadcast throughout New Jersey and in to New York City, and I could go on with examples forever. Even better, some (like mine) are BDS stations as well, so labels do look at us and track the music we play. People don't understand the politics involved in commercial radio and artists like 50 cent and Kanye West have tough time getting radio spins. If big artists like that can't get added into rotation you'd better believe unsigned artists have, unfortunately, slim to little chance at regular rotation. However, by starting at college radio you have the ability to get your spins up and build a fan base. If commercial stations notice you are getting spins at other stations, that definitely helps your chance at getting played on their station. College radio also offers an outlet to artists who have a different sound. Most college radio stations are all genres, so this holds true not just for Hip-Hop. I wanted to get on the radio because I wanted to be able to give artists who i thought were talented some shine and some exposure, that is my favorite thing about working at radio. I have the power to play whoever I want on the radio, not many people can say that, and because it is not a commercial station but still BDS, artists get the spins they need and there is no politics involved. If the record is hot, we will play it. Its done just like that. Your radio station is BDS, can you explain how important it is to you and artists? BDS and Mediabase is what labels use to track radio spins on artists. It is really important for artists to make sure they register their song with one or the other, or both, so that if they have a meeting with a label, labels can tell how many radio spins they have received from respective BDS and Mediabase station. Don't worry, it's free. Tell us about some artists you've helped I have worked with The Runners' artist Bali and Danjahandz's artist Kevin "KC" Cossom for the longest and although I am still working with both I am also working with Joe Budden, DJ Green Lantern, F.K.i (signed to GFC ..shoutout to Mickey Factz), Krys Ivory (signed to Ryan Leslie's next selection), Vic Damone (Def Squad/Universal.. whatup onpoint!), Atiba (Slip-N-Slide Records), and there are others but I can't say quite yet! Stay tuned (no radio pun intended)! Any artist that has a song produced by The Runners I usually always go hard on pushing. How can up and coming artists submit their songs? All artists and producers can send music to WPRKHIPHOP@gmail.com You started working with the Runners before they became famous, it must be great to witness that rise to fame. I started working with The Runners after the release of Hustlin'. I can't even put in to words how blessed it is to be in my situation with them. Its funny because Mayne and Dru are the same now as they were back then, they just have a bigger shoe collection and bank account, lol. It's so cool watching a beat get made in the studio and then hearing it on the radio as a complete song. Maybe that is why I don't do drugs, because I get such a high from being around their creativity in the studio so much that I don't need anything artificial to make me feel good. I keep telling them that they need to do a video of them in the studio to let the people experience their insane vibe together when creating a beat, maybe one day they will! The Runners are definitely producers and not beatmakers, so don't get it twisted, they do it all! What's your favorite memory as a program director? Thats a tough one... I guess playing Flo-Rida's "Low" and Jim Jones' "Ballin" months before they ever got one spin on commercial radio. Looking back on that now and seeing the success both those records had, showed me that maybe I did have an ear for music. The format of my radio show has changed a bit now, I focus on playing artists and music that don't necessarily get the commercial love, but back when both of those songs came out, Flo-Rida was PoeBoy and Jim Jones was Koch. I have also been playing Drake for years and now he is finally getting the recognition he deserves, so it's always cool to play a little part in someone's success. But I'd say my favorite memory so far was having KRS-1 come through the station and on my radio show for an hour and talk about everything. I mean that's KRS-1, the legendary KRS-1 coming through to my station on my show. It was crazy, I'll never forget it. We've seen you a lot lately on the internet, knocking down interviews with Joe Budden, Jadakiss and many more, how do you use the internet to connect with artists and fans? Well I look at it like this. I am blessed to be in the position I am in and realize that in this industry you have to be useful and have something that sets you apart from everyone else. Because I have the radio, I am able to use that to get in touch with artists. What artist does not want radio airplay? A lot of the artists that I am working for now I met from sending them a Myspace message (laughs.) Except for the ignorant comments people write on the videos, the internet is great. Whenever I can, I try and videotape the interviews because visuals are important now more than ever. When I first interviewed Joe Budden, the servers crashed (you can also tune in to the radio station online) because so many people were tuning in after I promoted it on his message board. When it was over, all of his "internet soldiers" wanted a copy of it so I released it and next thing I knew it had 60,000 hits in 24 hours. As a woman, do you feel like artist open more easily with you? Absolutely. How many young, white, Jewish, females do you know in the Hip-Hop industry? Being different has definitely been an asset for me. I haven't had too many bad experiences, there are only two I can really remember. There was this one time when a rapper wanted to "hang out" and when I realized that I had a different definition of "hang out" than he did and told him I didn't want to partake in his version of "hanging out" he got mad at me and went a bit off the rocker. The other rapper was Chingy. I met him in Miami and approached him at a bar. I introduced myself and gave him my business card trying to network (this was at a networking convention, by the way, so he knew why he was there) and he looked at me and threw my business card on the ground and walked away. I was pissed, but that was years ago and I'm sure he does not even remember doing that anymore. Other than that almost all of the people I met take on the "big brother" role to me. I have 3 real big brothers that have the same last name I do but I feel like now I have an extended family of like 60 big brothers. Tell us about the label you started, Pulse Music Group I started Pulse Music Group last summer. I wanted to become official. I do not have any artists signed to PMG yet, but that is because I can not find the one artist that I want to invest my time in. I have met a lot of artists that are really talented, but extremely dumb, or artists that were smart and talented, but had no work ethic, and I am not going to sign anyone to PMG who is not the whole package. Building up PMG is something I want to do in the future, but right now I am focused on Runners Music Group and all of my projects with other artists. The main reason for starting PMG was to run my music promotions company through it! So all artists out there looking for music promo (radio, online, street) hit me up at maguirepromo@gmail.com , lol. Miami is the first city that comes to mind when you mention Florida, how's the Hip-Hop scene in Orlando? I am going to catch a lot of flack from my city for this but it's not too good right now. I mean don't get me wrong, as Drake says "hardly home but always reppin'", i love my city and there is talent there, but i know that we can do better. We have The Runners, Oddz N Endz, Nasty BeatMakers on the production tip and some of the talent we have on the artist tip are: Smilez (Mr. Smilez) & Southstar, Treal, Wes Fif, All Pro Records, Bali (we share him with Ft. Pierce), Atiba, Kevin Cossom, and more (sorry if I left you out, don't hate me), but that does not compare to the numbers coming out of Miami. What Orlando needs to do is come together, instead of everyone trying to build their own separate movement and come up. My girl Mercedesstreets is working really hard to bring Orlando together, so i gotta give big ups to her and her movement! Your graduation is a month away, what's next? That is such a loaded question. My hopes are that I can do everything I am doing now, minus the daily 10 page papers and homework assignments that come with school, haha. I hope to take on more of a role with Bali and Kevin "KC" Cossom in their careers as both artists continue to get bigger and bigger. I hope to remain with The Runners forever (laughs.) I am thinking about moving to New York City, and I am pretty sure I will end up there eventually, but I am not ready to leave the radio in Orlando yet, so that move won't be happening anytime soon. I am excited to work with Joe Buddden (sorry, had too) and Green Lantern and Team Invasion, both of which are new relationships. Check out Jessie Maguire's blog at Jessiemaguire.blogspot.com

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