Orlando Radio: Hip-Hop Fans Hear No Evil

Matthew Richardson writing for The Orlando Sentinel says he was thrilled and revitalized but even more so curious on how a station supporting what is still claimed to be a small genre, can afford to play Christian Hip-Hop music 24/7. So, Richardson ventured to locate and interview someone at the station that looks not only to change the balance of hip-hop music played  today, but looks at the bigger picture of changing lives.

Hot 95.9: Music with zero compromise…Hot 95.9 FM is a Christian HipHop & R&B formatted station which Orlando area listeners can listen to on WPOZ-FM HD2 and on a translator signal at 95.9 FM.   WPOZ and Hot 95.9 FM are operated and owned by Central Florida Educational Foundation, Inc.   WPOZ Z88.3 FM consistently is top rated in Orlando market according to Arbitron.

LISTEN LINE:  Click Here.

Richardson writes:

A lesson that is taught to me repeatedly is to never judge a book by its cover. Entering Program Director Dean O’Neal’s office at Z88.3, the parent radio station for Hot 95.9, I immediately assumed O’Neal would be a young, energetic, hip-hop styled individual. 

O’Neal greeted me and burst my bubble. Here stood a large-statured, white male in his late 40s prepared to kick knowledge with me about hip-hop music.   He did not disappoint.
“I was the first generation where hip-hop in the mainstream was becoming mainstream,” O’Neal said. “I’m the Sugar Hill Gang, Sir Mix-A-Lot—that infancy when it was finally getting play on the top 40 radio—it was no longer heard only on urban stations; it was finally starting to breakthrough.” 

O’Neal said that he has always had a passion for hip-hop music ever since he was a kid so being the program director of a Christian hip-hop station is sort of his dream job.

Read More Here.

W250BV 95.9FM 60dBU Coverage area