While DJing for Berkeley college radio station KALX for over a
decade, music journalist Oliver Wang took satisfaction in knowing
that he was sharing music with a mass audience. Yet when weeks
would go by without any feedback from listeners, Wang had a hard
time knowing how many people he was reaching.
“When you feel like you’re operating in a vacuum, it
can get a little lonely,” said Wang, who will be visiting
UCLA this Thursday as part of the Rap Sessions discussion panel on
hip-hop and its role in culture and society.
Wang left KALX in 2004 and changed his approach to delivering
music and discussions about it to a wider audience.
He founded the Soul Sides music blog in 2004 as a way of getting
word out about new music he was listening to as well as to bring
attention to music he felt had been passed by or forgotten.
“With (a music blog), feedback comes faster,” Wang
said. “People post to say “˜Hey, that was great,’
and that interaction with an audience is what I really find
compelling.”
Aaron Rubin, music manager at UCLARadio.com, agreed and noted
that music blogs and radio both act as a strong indicator of what
is popular in the current musical climate.
“There’s the old example of the Shaggy album,
“˜Hot Shot,’ which the record company didn’t push
at all and (was) actually shelved,” Rubin said. “Then,
a DJ in Hawaii started playing the song “˜It Wasn’t
Me,’ and people started calling like crazy and the album blew
up.”
Music blogs can play a similar role, because they are usually
maintained by music fans in the 18- to 24-year-old age bracket,
which is a key demographic for record companies. The blogs in turn
show what is popular among this segment of record buyers, even
though the music talked up on blogs is predominantly
independent.
“Stations like KROQ have started playing more music of
this type, and I think blogs are starting to have an effect on what
gets played on the radio,” Rubin said.
On a given day, Wang will update Soul Sides and post a song or
two from an album or artist he feels people should give a listen.
Sometimes, the music he posts gets a response not just from his
readers, but from people connected to the artists themselves.
“I did something once on Eddie Fisher, a jazz guitarist
and session player from the ’70s, and the blog post trickled
back to Fisher and his family,” Wang said. “I got some
nice e-mails from his wife and son, who thanked me for sustaining
interest in (Fisher’s) older work.”
The growth of Soul Sides over the past two years has also
attracted fans with varying backgrounds and connections, and
recently one of them allowed Wang to be part of an experience he
wouldn’t have had a chance at on his own.
Last summer, he was approached by Kevin Drost, a fan of his blog
who ran the Zealous Records label. Drost asked Wang about curating
a compilation album that would be released through Zealous, and
also offered to take care of licensing and legal paperwork,
allowing Wang to concentrate on picking music for the compilation,
which was eventually released in March as “Soul Sides, Volume
One.” True to its name, the compilation consists of music
that can either be classified as soul music or is influenced by
soul in some way.
“A lot of soul albums come out every week, and I thought
that this would get lost in the shuffle,” Wang said.
“However, the familiarity that music journalists have with me
as a colleague seems to have made people more willing to listen, so
it has gotten more reviews than I would have expected and they have
been very positive.”
Wang’s stature as a music journalist and his experience
with publications like Scratch Magazine, the Oakland Tribune and
National Public Radio are also what got him involved with the Rap
Sessions discussion panel.
“The purpose of Rap Sessions is to create a forum in which
hip-hop writers and scholars can engage in a productive dialogue
with the public about issues like race in hip-hop that are
currently of importance,” said Adam Mansbach, a hip-hop
scholar and fellow panelist with Rap Sessions. Mansbach said that
some issues the panel anticipates discussing include the latest
debate about immigration, as well as the concept of “white
privilege” in hip-hop.
According to Mansbach, the concept of white privilege refers to
the idea that the United States is a white country by default, and
white Americans rarely have to think about what it means to be
white. This stands in stark contrast to minorities who wake up and
look at themselves in the mirror and critically look at their
position in society, as opposed to the white majority, who rarely
are challenged to think about their race and have the ability to
retreat from conversations about it.
Wang also anticipates talking about issues which have come up
about hip -hop and race recently, including the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina and rap group Three Six Mafia’s win for
Best Original Song at the Academy Awards last month.
Ultimately, Wang’s experiences in music on both a
scholarly and hands-on level have made him an ideal member of the
Rap Sessions discussions on hip-hop and its effects on culture and
society.
“Oliver is one of the most insightful and original
thinkers in music that I’ve come across,” Mansbach
said. “He is both an insider as a DJ and participant in
music, as well as a scholar who brings academic rigor and
insightful thinking and speaking (to the discussion).”
UCLA profiles will run every Tuesday in A&E.