THE CHARTS DECODED

Every week, Frequency News will take a close look at what is going on with the Urban Mainstream, and Urban Adult radio airplay charts AND the album sales charts from the previous week. We will keep track of what is happening with your favorite music so that you don’t have to!

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TOP 10 songs played on URBAN RADIO stations across American the past week!

Week of September 17 – September 24, 2011

Abbreviated chart. See Mediabase.com for full chart and detailed information.

To see the Radio One stations that make up this panel of Top 20

Visit Radio-One.com

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New Music and Music News Everyday

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When: October 3, 1949

What: J.B. Blayton, Atlanta’s first Black certified public accountant, purchased WERD in 1949. In turn, WERD held the distinction of being the first radio station to be owned and operated by an African-American in the United States.

In celebration of Black Music Month, TheUrbanDaily’s “It’s All Black Music” presents 100 Rewarding Black Music Moments, sponsored by Southwest Airlines.

Each Black Music Moment is associated with an actual place that you can visit. During the month of June, check in to at least three of these places on Foursquare to unlock TheUrbanDaily’s exclusive “It’s All Black Music” Badge. Check out the locations and details on our Foursquare page!

Black music is the foundation and the basis of many styles of music, from rock ‘n roll and pop to jazz and hip hop. By devoting a month to the global influences of Black music, Radio One is working to bridge the gaps in generations and bring out the passion our audience has for expressing themselves and their love for music.

Among the many custom and exclusive offerings being showcased this month we will be offering:

• It’s All Black Music Meter – TheUrbanDaily editorial staff will compel their our audience to vote on a variety of lists including The Top 10 Michael Jackson songs, The Top 10 Chris Brown songs and the most influential music producers of all time.

• The IN-dustry – A weekly editorial segment featuring key persons in the music industry, i.e. producers, A&Rs, product managers, sound engineers, etc.

• One Hit Wonder Wednesdays – Every Wednesday, Radio One will profile a beloved one hit wonder from the Black music community. Members will have the opportunity to chime in by leaving their comments

• Rewarding Moments in Black Music – This is a timeline that showcases some of the most rewarding and impactful moments in Black music.

In addition to these standard features for the month, there is also a roll out of daily content, which includes:

• Black Music Fact of the Day – Daily www.ItsAllBlackMusic.com will feature a known or little known musical fact

• Why We Love Black Musical Films – Our popular “5 Reasons To See” column will feature 5 classic musical movies like The Wiz and School Daze.

• Then and Now – A gallery franchise, it highlights artists over the years and their changing physical appearance, from hairstyles to plastic surgery.

DJ Drama will help feed the city of Atlanta’s needy this Thanksgiving holiday during the First Annual Turkey Challenge.

DJ Drama and all of Radio One’s Atlanta stations (Hot 107.9, Majic 107.5, Praise 102.5) have partnered with Hosea Feed the Hungry to help purchase 3,000 turkeys.

Drama, along with other on-air personalities, will host call-ins all day on November 16, live from the DeKalb Mall on November 16.

The goal is to raise enough money for the turkeys, which will feed thousands of under served families in Atlanta and the Southeast.

“This is an important event for not only me and the Aphilliates, but for Radio One Atlanta,” DJ Drama told AllHipHop.com. “The Atlanta community has provided us with so much love and support over the years and without them, we would not be the names we are today. It is our absolute pleasure to put together this event and provide to those who are in need.”

Story continued @Allhiphop.com

VIA EUR:

Radio One owner Cathy Hughes is trying hard to keep her company above water in the midst of this recession, having already cut folks’ pay by as much as 10 percent and reduced office hours at the company’s Maryland headquarters, reports Redding News.

“We are closing every other Friday,” Hughes told XM 169′s Joe Madison during a radio interview last week. “We’ve all taken three, five, seven or 10 percent pay cuts depending on what category your annual compensation was. We’ve voluntarily turned in vacation time, we furloughed and now we’re closing corporate – we’re closing Lanham – every other Friday to stay afloat.”

Hughes made her remarks while speaking out against Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, who is behind a bill requiring all radio stations to pay performance royalties to artists for playing their music, which Satellite radio currently does.

Radio observers say that the performance royalties may put a third of black-owned stations out of business.

We here at The Urban Daily want you to support BLACK RADIO! Click here to SUPPORT!

Tom Joyner’s weekday morning radio show, themed “The Party with the Purpose,” will begin airing in Chicago again after it was dumped last month from 102.7 WVAZ-FM and replaced by Steve Harvey’s morning program.

TJMS will broadcast on SOUL 106.3FM beginning tomorrow (April 22) from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. weekdays, while the weekend program, “Right Back At Cha,” will be heard on Saturdays from 9 a.m. -11 a.m.

For more about this story, please click here! Share your thoughts in the comments section!

According to the good folks over at MediaTakeOut, it seems that Radio One’s own Tom Joyner may have the scoop on Bey-Z:

“It looks like radio personality Tom Joyner is going in on Jay Z. MediaTakeOut.com caught wind that Tom was on the air BLASTING Jay Z last week. According to the radio personality, Beyonce made a poor decision, calling the Brooklyn born MC a “thug” and is upset that she married him.” She knows that she doesn’t have someone like Barack and she was just looking around thinking about the choices that she’s made. She should take a cue from JLo and leave the thugs alone. JLo knew what to do.

Tom reportedly went on to say the following:

It’s cool to have someone with an education. Degrees are ‘in’ again and Beyonce looked at her mate and started to cry because she knew that she was never going to be Michelle or by like Michelle…

She has GOT to be thinking twice about that ‘put a ring on it’ song. All of that goes out the window now and she wants to take all of that stuff back. I mean, she’s crying, looks to her side, starts crying even more and says to herself ‘I’m never going to be like Michelle.”

I’m never going to be in the White House as The First Lady and I’m never going to win an Oscar as long as I am with this thug.”

EDITOR’S UPDATE: The above comments came about during and after a conversation with comedian Earthquake. So, Tom may have only been joking when the comments were made.

Could it be a joke? Or simply a slip of the tongue? Stay tuned to The Urban Daily as we investigate this further.

Radio and club DJ K-Swift, who passed away earlier this year in a swimming pool accident, tirelessly championed her hometown’s bombastic brand of hip-hop/dance music known as Baltimore club. Swift’s longtime record label, Unruly Records, will release a tribute album, K-Swift’s Greatest Hits, next Tuesday, December 9th, which will show just how far the DJ’s evangelistic fervor spread. “I’m a big fan of Baltimore club music and the movement that Unruly Records has established,” says Sri Lankan MC M.I.A., who hosts the 36-track compilation. M.I.A., who has been taking time away from music since announcing her pregnancy in October, agreed to host the disc out of her appreciation for Swift, who is among the only female DJs to host a Number One rated radio show and a nationally syndicated mixtape show. On the day of the album’s release, BET’s The Deal will host a tribute to the Swift.

SOURCE: Rolling Stone

Beginning Thanksgiving night and airing on four consecutive nights starting Sunday, Nov. 30, TV One will premiere the series of one-hour biography specials that celebrate the lives and careers of four of those accomplished artists or groups who deserved – but didn’t make – the transition to superstardom.

The first episode explores the rise and fall of DeBarge, the family supergroup of the ‘80s that was poised to take the music industry baton from the Jackson 5. Sure, who worked with El DeBarge on the Quincy Jones track “Secret Garden” considered this particular story as close to home.

“I think the most important thing was the validity of the story. I think they nailed it on the head in terms of sticking to the truth,” Sure said. “The only thing that I would have a problem with is if the story was inaccurate. They were pretty much accurate and sticking to the story and talking to the family and getting it straight from the horses mouth.”

Sure explained that he was able to see some of the footage gathered by the show’s producers. He said that it was something that was really close to home in regard to being passionate about music and dealing with the industry – “as a big monster.” That connection and that fact that he’d only be a part of the project if it was an honest portrayal, and he guaranteed that there were no “inside sources” involved in the Unsung episodes.

“This is actually the family and friends and the artists themselves speaking on behalf of what their story is so that you have an accurate description of what transpired,” he said. “This particular series is the exception to the rule. ‘Unsung’ can now be that catapulting step that will depict the truth and let you walk through that journey with them about how it all went down. The most surprising thing that I learned was that when Motown signed the whole DeBarge family, it was almost a business transaction to transgress out of the Jacksons into the DeBarges.”

Sure agreed that Motown saw DeBarge as being potentially bigger than the Jacksons in part because of their look.

“The record labels were looking for that crossover potential to bring the urban to the mainstream by the light-skinned thing. When you think about it, it was ridiculous. At the same time, marketers would do anything to market their artist and they were trying to be ahead of the game,” he reported.

Following behind older brothers, Bobby and Tommy who led the R&B group Switch, the group, made up of younger siblings El, Bunny, Mark, Randy, and James, became one of the most popular groups on the label’s roster. Unfortunately for the talented fivesome, they also followed in their older brothers’ footsteps and got mixed up in drugs – with the exception of El, who took the lead in the group, and drugs played a major part in the group’s eventual downfall. On the other hand, as recent news reports have informed, El also succumbed to drugs as well and is currently serving time behind bars

The series also takes a look at the story of legendary soul man Donny Hathaway, powerhouse Phyllis Hyman, and gospel stars The Clark Sisters.

“It’s more of an interesting play for me because it was learning the facts about things that you’ve heard in the past, but also learning about these iconic lives that either were gone much too soon or are still going through things,” Sure said. “To me there’s a fine line between genius and crazy and sometimes you don’t know which way it will steer you.”

“I was thrilled. It was an honor for me to try to interpolate the producer’s vision, specifically with the Donny Hathaway piece; it’s just absolutely brilliant,” Sure said. “So just understanding the story and just going through, as the vocalist, you somewhat get lost in the story and you become part of the story. That’s what I tried to do in terms of doing the voice over. To just become the narrator of those feelings that are being portrayed on the screen. Hopefully I did my job.”

Unsung debuts Thursday, Thanksgiving night on TV One at 7 pm ET. Meanwhile, Al B. Sure is working a number of jobs including his #1 urban AC radio show in Los Angeles and his HD Radio show “Slow Jams.” The ‘80s R&B star – who secured his own hits like “Nite & Day” and as a writer and producer, introduced the group Jodeci and singers Tevin Campbell, Faith Evans, Dave Hollister, Case, and Usher to the music scene – Sure is also involved in a few ventures with a large holding company that is developing a major resort in Mexico at the tip of the Sea of Cortez, a new album called “Honey, I’m Home” and is working on his autobiography From Mt. Vernon to the Moon and Back.

Solange performs live for Philadelphia’s 100.3 The Beat. Beyonce who?