How Hip Hop Became Hit Pop

"How did rap become the most popular genre in the United States, and what were the consequences of this subculture becoming part of the mainstream? In How Hip Hop Became Hit Pop, Amy Coddington examines the programming practices at commercial radio stations in the 1980s and early 1990s to uncover how this industry facilitated rap's introduction into the musical mainstream. Playing rap on the radio changed the sound of the genre, as artists negotiated expanding audiences and industry pressure to make songs that fit on the radio. But the effects of rap's mainstreaming were not one-sided. The genre altered the radio industry by bringing brought together large multicultural audiences, challenging the racial identity of the popular music mainstream. But within a few years, the very idea of the mainstream would be called into question, as radio programmers unsure of the genre's popularity wreaked havoc on the multicultural coalitions which rap had fostered"--