Russ Parr Going Strong, and Global

From Avis Thomas-Lester, The Washington Post

It’s 7 a.m. on a recent Thursday, and Russ Parr has welcomed actor and singer Jamie Foxx, in town to promote his new album, into his Lanham studio for a chat.

As with most urban music artists who come to the D.C. area to publicize projects, an audience with the host of the nationally syndicated “Russ Parr Morning Show,” heard locally on WKYS (93.9 FM), is an essential stop. Parr banters with Foxx for 90 minutes about everything from the album to the historic TV miniseries “Roots” to Michael Vick buying a Porsche.

“That’s what I do with my show — improv on the radio,” Parr said in an interview. “You can’t write it down. It just has to happen. I like to take something that happened five minutes ago and make it funny. It’s a challenge. It makes you unpredictable, which is good, because I don’t think people like predictable radio.”
Parr airs in 38 markets on Saturdays and in 24 on weekdays. His show, which begins at 6 a.m., blends news, commentary and raucous repartee.

Although the show is down from its 45-station peak, Parr said he still has 1.8 million listeners. His show is the District’s second-place morning-drive program among 18- to 34-year-olds.

He acknowledges that the radio game is more complicated than it was when he started spinning rap records at Los Angeles’s KDAY (93.5 FM), which 25 years ago touted itself as the first 24-hour hip-hop station.

For example, Parr now draws a significant number of listeners from apps on smartphones. “I get texts from Switzerland answering the people-poll questions that I do,” he said. “I get texts and phone calls from Wisconsin, Utah, places like Tampa Bay, Florida, and I’m not on in those places. We’re global now, but there is no way to know exactly how many people are listening to us on apps. Everybody has the potential to be global with the Internet.”

But radio alone cannot contain him.

Parr is on tour promoting a book, “The Game Behind the Game: Mastering the Art of [Expletive]”, which was released this month. His newest film, “35 and Ticking,” is to be screened May 20 in the District, Baltimore and Atlanta. He begins shooting his fifth film in June in Los Angeles and will shoot another film in the District starting in August.

Alfred Edmond Jr., a senior vice president and editor at large at Black Enterprise magazine, said Parr is among a handful of popular nationally syndicated morning show hosts, including Tom Joyner and Steve Harvey, whom local stations rely on to draw larger audiences and bigger advertising dollars.

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