| Hot 107.1- Interview With A Radio Personality Essay, Research Paper
When I’m in a car riding down the street there is only one radio station that I really enjoy, KXHT 107.1. The music they play is quite specific. They are a hip-hop and R&B station that plays mostly southeastern groups. Hip-hop is quite new to me having really only gotten into it in the early years of high school were as I liked rock since childhood. It was for this reason and a few others that I decided to interview a personality from Hot 107 as they are nicknamed. Memphis is the first city that I have been to that has a station such as Hot 107 that plays only rap and R&B. Most other places will only have songs that are mainstream and then they are only played on the dance music stations. The other main reason I chose KXHT was its involvement on the campus at the University of Memphis.For my assignment I chose to interview one of the daytime radio personalities named Playboy. Playboy is actually a 25-year-old gentleman by the name of Tre Munson. For his current job, radio personality and promotion assistant, he goes on the road and DJ’s for special events both live and not. Most recently he and another disc jockey, Kid Fresh, hosted a step show in front of the UC at the University. He has done parties, concerts, charity events, and many other functions. About two weeks ago he also covered the after party for Method Man and Red Man, two nationally known rap music artists.Though he has only worked at the station for a few years he has already started on his way up the corporate later. When he originally came to the station he did so by the means of simply filling out a job application. He did not meet with success at his first couple of attempts. He actually had to go in and fill out quite a few and after that had to keep calling and pestering them until the finally offered him a job. Not the job he wanted, however, he was first just a support member for a street team. He felt that it was still a good way to get his foot in the door and he would be able to show the station he could do more for them elsewhere.After a few months of street team he was finally selected to become a personality. First he was given just part time and filler assignments like when the regular guy was on vacation or something. Then as he got more experience and a better knowledge of how things work he finally was put in as one of the six full time DJ’s.For Tre the future does not involve radio although he truly loves his job at KXHT. His big goals down the road are more grounded in records and dealing with music groups. He would like to become an A&R guy or possibly a tech rep. Someone who does all the dealings between a group and whatever location they will be playing or a group and the record label. He would ideally like to be employed by one of the big record companies because he says that is where the real money is. He likes the music, but he really like the money. It is funny when you meet a radio celebrity. You can never be too sure that you actually met the person you thought you had, with radio being strictly audio. I am delighted with the experience this interview has given me and the background information that I now know. My fondness for KXHT 107.1 has only grown and I hope they continue to be a great contributing force to this university and community. Thank you very much Playboy for a job well done.
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