The W File

This blog is an attempt to document and reconcile a part of my past. It is hoped that by retelling my triumphs, failures and bittersweet memories, some healing will occur. This exercise is sponsored by the Dee Barnes Center for Recovering Video Show Hosts, and my participation is compulsory, so this story will be told. But I’ll be telling it my way.

My involvement in the music industry started in 1990. I opened the case of my Young Black Teenagers cassette and found the phone number to SOUL Records. I stared at the number in disbelief. Could it be the def,dope and dangerous world of rap music was this close to a suburban kid who lived on a street named after a field of corn? I called the number and someone said “Soul Records.” I hung up. Damn, I thought, it really was the record label.

I gathered my nerve and called back later and spoke to a man named Simon Ajose. I told him that I needed some music videos for a show I helped produced for public access television in Richmond, Va. I suspected there might be a process or form to fill out, but all he asked for was my address. In few days, the clips for “Loud and Hard to Hit,” (Young Black Teenagers) “Change The Style” and “The Band Gets Swivey On The Wheels” (Son of Bazerk) were in my mailbox.

Despite my efforts to infiltrate the rap business, the television show I worked on fell apart. There was an empty time slot where our show had been and I was a young producer eager to make my mark. I joined forces with another guy at the studio and we decided to do a few shows, just to prove we could do it. I called mine Wavelength.

It was only supposed to be a few episodes, but I quickly discovered something about doing the show. I liked it and I never wanted it to stop.

So, thus begins my mandatory journey into the past. There's no telling what I might dig up.