"Inside the S.T.A.R." an in-depth talk with Sex Time And Radio author Marcus Chapman (Feb. 2011)

This article was originally posted on Qthequestion.com in Feb. 2011

Q: Let's get right into it.... Tell our readers who you are.

A: A dude your girl might know from a long time ago...No, wait, just kidding (laughing). Let’s see. Marcus Chapman is a very driven, smart, charismatic, complex man with great communication skills, a great sense of humor and a killer instinct when it comes to opportunities. Up to this point I’ve been best known for being a radio personality named MC Marcus Chapman, but now people are starting to know me as the author of the book Sex Time And Radio: the Raw Uncut Story of an On-Air Personality (and the Decline of the Radio Industry), which I consider the culmination of everything I’ve ever done in my life. I’m originally from the Southeast side of Chicago. Yet even as a kid I always understood that there was more to the world than what I saw around me everyday. That world outlook, combined with the ways of the radio business, played a big role in my career.  I did radio for three years in college, then worked in Chicago, Indianapolis, Dallas, and Chicago again two more times. In between Indy & Dallas I was considered for on-air jobs in several other cities like Miami, DC, Philly, and Raleigh, North Carolina. There was also some talk of me possibly going to New York at one point. None of those situations panned out, but the Dallas job did, so I went down there.  Los Angeles and Atlanta were both in the mix of possibilities when things weren’t going well during my second stint in Chicago.  Neither of those worked out either, but after a third shot at making things right at home I moved to Atlanta in 2008. The experiences I’ve had in radio, plus the info I’ve gathered over the years as a music historian, collector, and observer of black culture, all went into the book and made for a hell of a story.       

Q: Growing up did you always want to be on radio?

A: No.  Radio was a career choice that I made in college when it was time for me to pick a major. I looked through a book about careers and it described what you needed to have in that business. From what I read, the three main things it took were an outgoing personality, talking on the phone, and a willingness to move to different places because most people in radio aren’t from the cities where they work. But at the same time, I had always been on a path that was leading me to radio anyway. I didn’t realize it at the time, but being on the radio made complete sense to me once I picked that career. It was like “duh, why didn’t I think of this earlier?”     

Q: When you first started did you ever think you would be this successful?

A: Put it this way, the flyer I designed for my first radio show in college said “The Livest 4 Hours in the History of Radio Broadcasting”.  I hadn’t even turned the mic on for the first time yet when I made it, so that should tell you how I felt about my chances! (laughing). One of the main reasons I got into radio was because I felt it was something I could be really great at. Not just be one of the best, but THE best if things went right, and that’s what I was reaching for from the beginning. Unfortunately I didn’t have any guidance in college, so although I had potential and music knowledge, from a professional radio perspective I didn’t sound very good at all.  I did two internships; one in Chicago and one at a pop station in DeKalb, Illinois in my last semester at school.  Both of them were very helpful, but the real turning point came after I graduated from college in May of ’95 and was trying to get on in Chicago. That’s when I took the time out to really listen and study what I was hearing from the air talents instead of just focusing on the songs like a regular listener.  At that point I realized that being on the radio wasn’t about being a DJ playing music, or even talking about music.  It was about being a personality, which meant relating to the audience and coming up with creative ways to get the callers involved in the show. A lot of people think it’s all the same thing, but trust me we’re talking about two totally different forms of expression. The whole transformation from “DJ” to “personality” was a complete turnaround in my thought process, and really in my whole life. It brought a new sense of possibility and freedom that I didn’t have before that.  It also brought a new challenge since I basically had to start my career over, plus get inside the station to make some money while learning the business and establishing myself all at the same time. It wasn’t guaranteed that I’d make it, so I had to give it everything I had.  I made very little money and it damn sure wasn’t easy. Yet it was also exciting as hell due to the era, the station, the city, and all the people who were around at that time.  That first go round in Chicago from summer 1995 through summer 1999 was a great time of progress and fun for me.  There were some frustrations in there too, but overall I view those years like most people look at their college years.  I’m glad I came up in that era.  Now how much success I’ve had since then depends on your perspective.  I’ve always known what my potential was, and I know that I didn’t get nearly as far or as big as I was capable of getting.  But we’ll get into more of that later in the interview.                      

Q: You are known for being very out spoken and animated. What do you feel sets you apart from your industry counterparts?

A: How “out spoken” or “animated” I am depends on the situation. I always said that “MC Marcus Chapman” was the energetic, go-all-out, kick-ass side of my personality, and that’s what people heard on the radio. But I also knew that I couldn’t expend the energy it took to be that way all the time, so I approached it sort of like a light switch. At one point I called it “putting on the Superman cape”, although it was really like the “MC cape” (laughing).  When it was time to get into that frame of mind, I went into the zone just like a super hero, a band going on stage, or an athlete with killer instinct like Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant and became that bad ass dude I needed to be to have the hottest show possible.  It was a great high that I loved, but once I was out of that energetic environment of the station or hosting a club, I turned it off so I wouldn’t burn myself out.  I also felt like my on-air personality was just an introduction to everything else about me.  Now a lot of people who’ve met me might say that I was “laid back” or “mellow” simply because they expected me to be “on” at all times.  But I never felt like I had to “perform” for anybody when I wasn’t working, nor would I allow anyone to force me to be just an air personality because that’s not all I was.  You have to maintain a balance between kick-ass personality and down-to-earth person, and a lot of things I enjoy in life have nothing to do with being on the radio.

Now as far as what set me apart from other radio people, I think my mentality going into the shows, my preparation before them, how I marketed myself even when I wasn’t talking, and the fact that I viewed every talk break or phone call as an opportunity to reach people were all at the highest level possible.  See, I was always a smart kid.  I actually skipped first grade, could've skipped 2nd too, and was #1 in my class in 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grades.  After that I became more interested in studying the social habits of people than I was in most of the subjects they were teaching in school, so my grades varied depending on what the class was.  But that intelligence was always there, and it played a big role in what I did on the radio.  Even though I didn’t know much about the backgrounds of other personalities I worked with over the years, I could always tell who was really smart and who was sort of a dumbass based on the things I heard them do on the air, what I saw them to in the studio when the mics were off, or how prepared they were for their shows. Knowing that you need to turn it up a notch, and be prepared for what you’re about to do when you’re on the air, is critical as far as I’m concerned.  If you don't run your show, your show will run you, and you might be run out of a job. Just about everyone in radio does show prep in terms of what they’re going to discuss on the air, but to me preparing also meant not letting things distract you from the show itself.  Things like making sure you eat before going to work might not seem like a big deal, but you can’t give your all to the audience when you’re too busy eating or complaining about being hungry.  I might’ve grabbed a candy bar or something with an hour left in the show just to hold me over until I got off work, but I’ve seen cats in the studio eatin’ Popeyes chicken and all types of shit like they were in a cafeteria while the phone lines were ringing off the hook with listeners trying to get through.  I’d be thinking “why don’t you do that before or after you come to the studio?” That type of shit was just unacceptable to me.  Same thing with taking & making a lot of personal phone calls, or focusing more on kicking it with your co-workers in the studio than talking to the listeners who call you.  I tried my best to do all that before & after my shows instead of during them.

To me, being on the radio was like being on a stage.  It was my time to shine and connect with people, and I wasn’t about to waste it for even a minute by doing stuff I could do any other time.  Part of my attitude came from my college radio experience.  In college I only got about 15 phone calls in three years.  I even did some contests where the lines didn’t ring, so I knew there was nobody listening at those moments, and it was no fun doing radio shows without any personal interaction with listeners.  Because I went so long without a big audience, once I got to professional radio I never took the callers for granted.  I wanted to at least put people on hold for a chance to talk to them instead of just letting the lines ring because I appreciated them calling.  I learned early on that one good phone call can set the tone for your whole show, or take the show to an even higher level.  The tricky part is that you never know what caller on what phone line may say something to cause that to happen.  It was sort of like playing the lottery without having to spend any money.  You can’t get the prize if you don’t play, so my solution was to answer as many calls as possible to increase my chances of getting winning calls.  Plus the first job I got hired for in radio was to answer the phones in the studio.  I talk about it in one of my favorite chapters in the book called “Telephone Luv”.  Some of the most fun and most memorable experiences I ever had in radio came from my time as a studio assistant working the phones, and it definitely helped me when it was time to get behind the mic.  When I went in the studio for a show, I didn’t care about anything else but hitting it with everything I had.  I didn’t take personal calls or try to get my friends & family to listen, because those aren’t the people who you need to reach to be successful.  People who don’t know you and have no reason to like you beyond what you bring on the air are the ones you have to reach; especially women because that’s who radio is geared more towards. 

Q: Now you recently released a tell-all book "Sex Time And Radio" what's the premise behind this project?

A: Sex Time And Radio is a concept that I came up with back around 2002 that was based on my experiences as an air personality up to that point.  The original idea was for it to be a movie script, with most of the emphasis being placed on what happened between 1995 and 2001.  Not long after I got the idea for it, I saw this movie on cable called Blow.  It starred Johnny Depp as this real life cocaine dealer who was huge in the ‘70s, but his empire fell apart and he ended up in prison.  I’m not really a big movie person, but I found the story very interesting.  It gave a more personal perspective on what it was like to be that person living that lifestyle at that time.  Plus it was told through the voice of one particular man instead of just showing the actions of everyone involved without a narrator like most movies do.  I’m not really fascinated by the whole drug kingpin lifestyle, and my life has nothing to do with that.  But the way Depp narrated the story and the way it was told on screen reminded me a lot of my own experiences in radio.  Being a radio personality is a lifestyle too, and although there have been some movies about radio, I don’t feel like any of them capture the real essence of the lifestyle that came with being that person behind the microphone; especially not for those of us who came up in the business during the ‘90s and early 2000s.  Blow gave me a template that I could use to set Sex Time And Radio into motion. 

As time went on, more and more things happened in my life and career that added to the drama and plot of the story.  Then in late 2007 and early 2008 I was putting together a career archive page online with audio from some of the most significant shows I did, along with video footage and pictures.  Since there was so much happening behind the scenes while I did those shows, I wrote blogs to go with each one of them that explained what was going on both inside and outside the studio at the time.  Writing those blogs was the start of Sex Time And Radio going from just a thought into something tangible.  By the time I decided to move to Atlanta I already knew I was going to turn the idea into a book since a lot of films, including Blow, originate from books anyway.  I also knew that writing a book would allow me the space to expand the idea beyond the time limits of a movie.  Like I said earlier, I’m a music historian.  I do a lot of reading and research about artists, eras, and genres of music.  The best music biography I’ve ever read was Divided Soul: the Life of Marvin Gaye by David Ritz.  It was supposed to be written by Ritz and Gaye together, but when Marvin was killed David Ritz went ahead and did the book on his own.  I originally read it in 1999, and when I decided to finally start writing my book in 2008 I used the structure of Divided Soul as a guide on how to structure Sex Time And Radio.

Instead of only focusing on my career, I saw the book as a chance to document the time that I lived in, the important music, people, and cultural events of the era, and the experiences that influenced me to become both the person and personality that I became.  I also wanted use my own sexual experiences to give people deeper perspectives on the male sex drive, and what is and isn’t considered “safe sex”.  I had new concepts I wanted to introduce like “Sexorcism”, “The 3^rd Choice Theory”, and “The Fantasy of Exclusivity” that deal with issues people can learn from.  I approached the whole project like it was 20 years from now, or if I was no longer alive, and someone who had never even heard of me picked it up to read it.  I wanted Sex Time And Radio to be a stamp on the culture that would educate anyone reading it and make them feel like they were living during the era themselves as the stories unfolded.  One thing I didn’t want it to be was a “hindsight book”.  Since the idea was to take the reader on a realistic journey through the industry, whatever feelings I had when the events took place are the exact same feelings that I wanted to come through in the writing.  Even if I saw a situation differently years later, I wanted how I felt at the time it happened to be what was in the book so the reader would feel the changes as they took place. 

I conceptualized the whole thing thoroughly from start to finish, and I drew on the same creativity that I used for my radio shows to come up with intriguing chapter titles.  I wanted titles that not only described each particular point in the journey, but that also played off the individual words in the title Sex Time And Radio while not necessarily being about that subject.  For example, chapter titles like “Subliminal Sedu’sa”, “Say My Name, Say My Name”, “Sleeping with the Enemy”, and “C’Mon Ride the Train” all play off the sex angle in some way, yet they may or may not be completely about sex; if they’re about sex at all.  In radio I always tried to think from the listeners’ perspective to make sure I was doing things that people would want to hear or be a part of.  When I was writing I tried to think from the readers’ perspective to make sure the book had little “subtle treats” that make it more interesting. As a person reads they find out the reason why I gave each chapter its title, but as they read further they may find a totally different meaning behind the title that they never would’ve expected.  Since I’m a music guy, some of the chapter titles are also song titles or variations on song titles.  Plus I used quotes from different song lyrics at the beginning of each chapter to kind of set the tone.  I’ve seen that done in several other books, but I don’t think anyone has done it quite as effectively as I have.  Most of it was written really late at night, like 3 to 5am.  There was no one else around and it was real quiet, so that made it easier for me to totally reflect and dig deeper into what I was writing about.  I also wanted to make sure the information I presented was as accurate as possible, so even though I have a great memory, I did a lot of research by checking old newspaper articles, industry magazines, documentaries, and stuff I taped off TV.  I even researched my own career by going back and listening to every show I ever did that I had available to me. More than a few things that I’d forgotten about came back to me as I was going through the shows, and the whole process of writing about that stuff was kind of like reliving everything all over again.    

I broke the story up into three parts; then I broke it down further and made it five parts.  I approached each part like it was an album or a CD, and approached each chapter like it was a song.  The first part is called “Blueprint of a Radio Star”.  It deals with the real life experiences that led me to want to be in the radio spotlight; many of which aren’t necessarily good.  Although they’re my experiences, anyone reading will relate to the subjects; especially if they grew up in that same era.  Part two is called “Rebel Music of a Sex Machine”.  It deals with my college radio experience, plus the events and music that helped influence me to be more than just another voice on the radio.  It also deals with the growth process from wanting to be one of the guys into being a strong individual most guys aspire to be.  Part three is called “The Cult of Personality”.  It covers the transformation from DJ to personality that I mentioned before; as well as everything else that went with working at a great station in the second half of the ‘90s.  That’s definitely my favorite part of the story.  The fourth part of the book is called “Road Warrior on the Industry Map”.  That part that deals with working in radio outside of where you’re from, which is a whole different world from being on in your hometown.  I think that’s the most interesting part of the story overall.  The fifth and final part of Sex Time And Radio has the most cinematic “edge of your seat” drama.  It deals with the changes in the 2000s that led to the decline of the radio industry, as well as my own decline and comeback.  If you want to know how we’ve gone from radio being a huge deal to a point where many people can care less about it, this is the part that gives you the answers.  It’s called “Communication Breakdown”. 

Like I said before, I was being looked at by all these different stations around the country at one point, including some that I hadn’t even heard of or considered, so you know I had to be kicking some serious ass on the air for that to happen. I was really about one good job away from being on the “A list” level in the industry. Then at a certain point the rug kinda got pulled out from under me and everything changed.  Instead of reaching the top like I was capable of, my life & career began turning into some kind of Greek tragedy.  Part of it was the industry outlook on what an on-air talent on a so-called “hip-hop and R&B” station should sound like.  Management at too many stations started thinking you had to be shouting, yelling, or sounding like you came straight off the street to attract the audience or to be “hip-hop”; even though most of them had no real connection with the hip-hop audience their stations were going after.  Experience became almost more of a liability than an asset because some stations and companies didn’t want to spend money on hiring the best talent; or felt they didn’t have to since they didn’t have any real competition or weren’t really trying to win.  Urban contemporary radio in a lot of markets turned into weak ass thugged out “nigga radio” and it ended up hurting the industry. Since I actually sounded like I had some sense, it limited the number of opportunities out there for me, as well as others like me from my generation.

But even more than all of that, the thing that really ticked me off was that I got fucked over in my own hometown during the 2000s.  If you go to my website and listen to some of my work, especially from say around 2002, you’ll hear me absolutely on fire!  And I’m not saying that just because it’s me either. I’ve always been very honest and objective about anything I did.  In fact, a lot of the stuff I did early in my career sucked, but I kept working at it, kept getting better and better, and by summer ‘98 I was finally reaching the potential I felt I had all along.  Yet after all the work I did, all the experience I gained, and as great as I was sounding, I was never hired for an everyday full-time radio job in Chicago.  From the very beginning I’d been told that gaining experience from other stations around the country was the way to build my career so that I’d be good enough to work full-time in a major market like Chicago.  Instead of that happening, all I got were weekend shifts, back up roles to people I knew I could smoke, and a bunch of people telling me I how good I sounded on the air while others with less talent and/or experience got the full-time jobs.  There’s no way in the world anyone can listen to the clips from those shows and tell me I should not have been doing afternoon drive everyday in Chicago at that point.  Most people who do afternoons really want to do mornings, so they always see it as the second best spot on the station.  I was perfect for that spot, and I’m pretty sure I would’ve been the best afternoon drive talent of my era, if not of all-time; which is saying something because there were a lot of great afternoon personalities over the years.  The public doesn’t necessarily understand, but being on the radio during the week is A LOT different from just doing weekends and fill-ins. Weekday people are full-time employees with contracts, benefits, more paid appearances from the station, and much better salaries than weekend air talents. That’s not to say that weekday radio doesn’t have its share of bullshit to deal with, but at least you can get a decent check for it. You have to have another job when you’re only on the air a few days a week; if you can get one.  Hosting parties is one way to make more money, but by early 2003 that option basically disappeared in Chicago; at least for the station I was with.  At one point someone said my life was great because I only had to “work two days a week and got to meet all the celebrities”.  Now what job do you know of that pays better for two days work than for five or six?  Meanwhile, every time it seemed like things would turn around and break through in my favor, whoever was in charge of making the decisions chose to hire someone else who was less talented, or kept someone around who no longer fit in with the audience.  It was all pretty draining, and it’s one of the main reasons I don’t drink alcohol.  I drank when I was in college, but it got phased out before I graduated.  For years I’ve known that if I drank, there’s a good chance I might take my frustrations out on somebody who said the wrong thing to me at the wrong time.  I came close to beating the shit out of a couple of motherfuckers over the years while I was out at different parties, and being sober was the only thing that stopped me.  If I’d had some liquor in me I can almost guarantee I would’ve been arrested for clocking someone over the head with a beer bottle or some other outrageous action.  That may not sound good, but hey, it’s the truth.  Anger is a bitch, especially when everyone around you tries to tell you how rosy your life is because they have serious misconceptions about how things are actually going for you.  Fortunately I got a lot of that anger out of my system, and writing my book was very helpful in that process.  It’s probably the one thing I pray about more than anything else.  Not to be angry.

Q: The book is jammed packed with stories of your personal experiences, sex and pop culture's favorite celebs. Were you worried about a possible backlash from those mentioned?

A: Not at all.  Whether it was modern day stars like Chris Brown, Keyshia Cole, her mom Frankie, Beyonce, Alicia Keys and Swizz Beats; or legends like James Brown, George Clinton, Rick James, Luther Vandross, Gladys Knight, or Pam Grier; the goal wasn’t to bash people or just tell a bunch of gossip.  I wanted to give a realistic view of what happens when you meet celebrities.  Now there are a few who may be upset by what I wrote, but if the story is negative it’s because that’s the way they made the experience.  Maybe it’s a chance for them to re-think how they deal with people from now on.  I tell one story in the book about an NBA basketball player who left out the men’s room at a party without washing his hands.  His friends even asked him if he was going to wash his hands and he was like “nope!”  What made it even crazier was that the party was a Christmas toy drive for kids!  I was like “damn, I hope he don’t handle the toys!” (laughing).  Michael Jordan was there that night too, and I made a comparison between his championship Bulls of the ‘90s to the way less successful teams this younger player was on.

Now as far as the sex stories go, I wrote about the experiences I had the way the happened, or did not happen, as the case may be.  People think it’s just “oh you’re on the radio, so all the women are throwing themselves at you all the time”, and that’s just not how it works.  I wanted to peel back those layers, or sheets if you will, as to how and why things went they way they did, as well as how I felt about all of it.  I also wanted to delve deeper into the psyche of what drives a man in a spotlight position, and it damn sure doesn’t start when he gets behind a microphone or whatever brings him more public awareness.  The sexual frustrations that start early on in life, and continue throughout adulthood, play as much of a role as anything else, if not more.  Plus the number of women who just want to waste your time or don’t screw you is still way higher than the number of those who actually do want you.  The isolation that can come from being away from home plays a role too when you work in another city.  I’ll give you an example.  I worked in Indianapolis for exactly one year and two months.  That’s 365 days plus another 60 days, which equals 425.  Out of those 425 days & nights I spent at least 350 of them home alone at the end of the night.  I couldn’t hang out with my family or friends I knew before I got in the business because they weren’t around.  I couldn’t go to the places I used to enjoy because I wasn’t anywhere near them.  But I could call the bad little caramel skinned chick with the big ass I met at the party a few nights earlier to see if she wanted to come hang out with me.  If she wasn’t free I could call the slim sexy one with the nice lips I met off to the side of the dance floor and see what she’s talkin’ about.  Or maybe nobody answers my call and I spend the night reading old Vibe magazines and watching old episodes of the Chris Rock Show.  But then maybe the one I met at the gas station with the “sexy teacher look” and the big titties can come through on her lunch break tomorrow afternoon.  These were all real experiences I had.  I didn’t use any of their names, but I tried to describe the women in ways that show they were real people and not just random pieces of ass.  I appreciated every last one of them too.  They helped me celebrate if things were going well, and they took my mind off the negativity when things weren’t going right, which unfortunately can be more often than it ought to be in the business.  The funny thing is when a woman who never had sex with me tries to make it seem like there had to be something wrong with the women who did because I was on the radio when they met me; as if there's no way possible there could've been anything good about me to get that kind of sexual action.  It's not that there was something wrong with them, it's that there was something right about me, and the majority of the encounters were enjoyable for both them and me.  I never misled, or mistreated anybody, nor did I leave them with any babies to take care of.  So anybody who thinks I'm about to apologize for getting laid responsibly can go cut themselves with the edge of an old child support check for all I care! (laughing)     

Plus I always felt like my personal interactions with women as a good looking single guy helped the stations I worked for.  I mean, think about it.  What fun is it for the female listeners in a city if all the guys on the radio station they listen to are married and/or off-the-market; or just a bunch of ugly motherfuckas they don’t want to deal with anyway? (laughing)  The most successful station I ever worked at had a bunch of good looking guys with strong female appeal.  Women are sexually attracted to men who seem exciting, so if somebody at the station is available to fulfill those fantasies once in a while, it makes their connection to the station even stronger.  If a woman has a good experience with the guy on the radio she’s going to be a loyal listener, and may even get her friends or family to check him out too.  Matter of fact, one woman I dealt with years ago told me that she told her little sister to listen to me after we met.  Her sister was in elementary school at the time, so of course she went and told all her friends that her big sister knew MC Marcus Chapman from the radio.  That made all the other kids listen even more than they might’ve been doing already because they felt connected to me.  Exactly how well I was connecting with their friend's older sister was a different story, but you get the point.  Anyway, that was back in 2000.  Now all of those kids are young adults.  You think they’ll be interested in reading what was going on at the station behind the scenes, or what it was like to actually be the personality they were listening to?  I’d say there’s a good chance they might be.  So overall my sex life always benefited the station by bringing more listeners, and it benefited me because I got the sex and the great stories that went in the book.  That’s a win-win situation for everybody!  (laughing)      

Q: Is there anything that didn't make the book? and why?

A: Yes.  The main reasons were usually because there was no story to go along with the experience, I couldn’t connect it to anything else in the book, or because it just didn’t fit within the flow of the writing.  Aside from just having great stories, Sex Time And Radio is a well written book that’s easy to read because it flows very well from part to part, chapter to chapter, paragraph to paragraph, and sentence to sentence.  It takes you through every emotion possible, so I made a conscious effort not to have too much of the same thing going for too long.  I knew what kind of vibe each particular chapter should have, and how it should flow out of what came before it and what was coming after it.  If something I wanted to say couldn’t fit in the story without breaking up the flow, I either found a different spot for it or didn’t include it at all.  Plus a lot of things unexpectedly come back up in other parts of the story, which makes it even better.  Overall though I’d say I got about 95% of what I had to say into the book.       

Q: This book is based on actual people and events. Were there any stories and people you had to embellish about to make appear more interesting?

A: Not at all.  You’re not the first person to ask me that either.  Believe me, so much outrageous and cinematic stuff took place there was no need to make up anything to add to it.  If anything I scaled some of the stories down.  I treated a lot of them like phone calls at a radio station.  A call may last two minutes, but the main part of it that goes on the air may only be about 24 seconds or something.  I got to the meat of the stories the same way I got to the meat of the calls.     

Q: Is there a possibility of a second book?

A: Anything is possible, but I wouldn’t count on it.  My goal was never to be an author of a bunch of books.  The closest thing to that might be having each of the five parts of Sex Time And Radio turned into a smaller book of its own, like a series.  My main goals are to get people to read what I wrote and to get it turned into a film.  I’d love to see some of these stories played out on the big screen because I know it would be a classic movie.  Plus the book industry, like a lot of other industries, seems too focused on getting the “quick buck”, the “sure thing”, and the “automatic audience”.  I understand they want to make money because I do to.  But I believe one of the main reasons the economy is jacked up is because businesses are too afraid to invest in something that could be huge just because it doesn’t come attached with an instantly recognizable name.  This country is obsessed with celebrities, yet the fact that a familiar name is attached to something doesn’t automatically make it good.  A lot of that celebrity stuff is absolute garbage, but as long as they can make some quick guaranteed bucks off somebody’s name, companies will keep putting that garbage out.  Radio has gotten caught up in that too.       

Q: You have been in radio for a couple of decades, do you feel it's important to make nice with sponsors and who's hot at the current time to ensure a long lasting career?

A:   Well I’ve worked in radio during a couple of decades, but not 20 years.  The only thing that keeps you around in radio is your employers liking you.  That’s all.  You can piss off the listeners, diss the artist, get arrested, whatever.  But if the person in charge wants you to be there, your ass will be there regardless.  I bring up a good example of that in the book.  When the Star & Bucwild morning show on Hot 97 in New York made fun of Aaliyah when she died, they still stayed on the air even after listeners protested.  They were eventually taken off because of another incident years later, but now they're back doing mornings in Philly.  The bottom line is that if the station management wants you, you're on regardless of what anyone else thinks.  On the flip side, everyone else can consider you the greatest and you can have the highest ratings in the history of your time slot, but if station management doesn’t want you there your ass is outta there.  Nothing anyone else says will have any impact on the decision either way.  The listeners and clients may not like it, but when the next person comes to replace you, listeners either adjust and stay with the station or they turn away altogether. You're not gonna get your job back either way.  A lot of the people in charge feel that anybody can be a star on the air with enough promotion anyway, or they don’t want anyone to be stars at all.  If you’re the person they choose, you benefit.  If not, then you’re either let go or kept from moving up to higher profiled shifts on the station. 

Q: What are some changes you've made throughout your career and are there any you feel never should have been made?

A: Making changes is a big part of being successful in radio.  Most of the changes I made had to do with the features I had in my shows, but the biggest change I can recall is discussed in a chapter called “Last Dance with Mary Jane”.  One of the main subjects in that chapter is when I changed my actual approach on the microphone back in 2006 and 2007.  Up to that point I’d been known for being really energetic on the air; which was appropriate because from like late 1998 through 2004 I had mostly been doing 6 to 10 night shows that were very party oriented and called for a real upbeat vibe.  But having a sense of consciousness had always been a part of my personality too, and I didn’t want to be remembered as just “a party dude”.  Once I started hosting shows that came on earlier in the day, I wanted to talk about what was happening in the news and create an outlet for some intelligent dialogue that the listeners could learn from.  Having more news oriented content meant that I needed to slow my delivery down somewhat so my sound fit the subject matters.  Questions like “should Barack Obama run for President?” or “should mandatory HIV testing be implemented in schools?” are a lot different from asking “who’s second CD was absolute garbage?” or “what rappers need to stop acting?” If you go to the audio page of my website, which is mcmarcuschapman.com or sextimeandradio.com, you can hear a lot of the changes I made over the years.  When you look at it as a whole it makes for an impressive body of work that I’m very proud of.              

Q: What is some advice you can give to the on air Personalities of today?

A: You mean the ones who want to listen?  Some new people think they know everything already, so they don't bother listening and I don't bother sharing. (laughing). But for the sake of answering your question...Well first of all, everyone on the radio isn’t really a personality.  Some people are announcers or jocks, and a lot of the companies no longer want personality on their stations.  I go into the differences between announcers, jocks, and personalities in a chapter called “The 20 Dollar Challenge”.  Later in the book I deal with why personality has been removed from the airwaves in many cities in the “Communication Breakdown” chapter.  But as far as advice goes, it’s kinda hard.  I already know the limitations placed on air talent these days in terms of how short the talk breaks have to be, so it’s kinda difficult to really be a voice that speaks both to and for the people when you’re on the radio these days. One thing I will say is try to bring more to the table than just the whole “celebrity gossip” thing. Giving out entertainment news has always been a part of radio, but being on the mic can and should be so much more than that.  Some people actually think they’re hot shit on the air just because they interview a star or because they give out celebrity info.  Anybody can go on the air and do that, so on-air people have to realize that they’re not setting themselves apart from the pack by doing what Ice Cube described years ago as talking about "who’s fuckin’ who and who’s gettin’ fat”.  Meeting and interviewing stars is fine, but if you want a shot at stardom on the radio you have to be the star yourself.  You have to brand yourself and make your own name stand out, not just jock the singers, actors, rappers, and athletes.  I was on the air for at least six years before I interviewed anybody, so my career has never been defined by who I met or took a picture with.  It’s all just a part of the game, so use it for your own benefit, like I did with the “star pics” on my book cover.  My other advice would be to read Sex Time And Radio.  It’s the definitive story about being in the radio business, so being in radio and not reading it would be like being a comedian and not watching & listening to Richard Pryor’s albums and dvds.  

Q: Do you have any final words? Where can people purchase your book and keep up with you?

A:   The main thing I’ll say is that Sex Time And Radio is a much more significant project than a lot of people seem to think it is.  I've had people get upset with me just for trying to promote the motherfucker.  Seriously.  Like I'm supposed to just sit back and hope somebody finds it on the internet and magically buys it without ever hearing about it.  Since the radio industry has lost so much of its shine over the past decade, some people don’t believe that there’s anyway this book could be all that good or all that necessary to read.  But I’ll put this book up against anything anybody has ever done.  I'm not just talking about books either.  I'll put it up against anything that's out there competing for your entertainment dollars.  Sex Time And Radio is the Notorious B.I.G./Ready to Die, the Prince/Purple Rain, the Usher/Confessions, the Led Zeppelin/Physical Grafitti, the NWA/Straight Outta Compton, the Chris Rock/Bring the Pain, the Stevie Wonder/Songs in the Key of Life, the Jay-Z/Blueprint, the Steely Dan/Aja, the Mary J Blige/My Life, and the Eddie Murphy/Delirious of books!  Not only is it a great read, but like all those classics I just mentioned, it’s something that you’ll feel was actually worth your money; not just some bullshit someone threw together just to make a quick dollar. 

As far as how to get it, there are several different ways to buy Sex Time And Radio.  You can go to amazon.com, go to my website, sextimeandradio.com or mcmarcuschapman.com, which has the direct links to the listings for both the paperback edition and the kindle ebook on amazon.  The ebook edition is less than $10, and you can download the free kindle app from amazon to read it on your blackberry, android, iphone, ipad, or even your laptop.  If you have a nook device from Barnes and Noble you can get it from their site too, which is bn.com.  You can also go to any book store and have them order it for you if you prefer the paperback edition.  

I’m pretty easy to contact.  I’m on both facebook and twitter @mcmarcuschapman, and you can also reach me through my website, mcmarcuschapman.com or sextimeandradio.com.  Besides the links to buy the book, the site also has the audio page with clips from shows I did between 1992 and 2010.  It’s sort of the soundtrack to the book, and you can listen or download anything from it for free, including those “gotta have” celebrity interviews with people like Nas, Rick Ross, Keyshia Cole, Ice Cube, and the late Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes.  There’s also a page with video footage from inside the studio and one of the clubs I hosted, plus links to nearly 1,000 pictures that go with what’s in the book.  Finally I’d like to thank you at Qthequestion.com for the interview, and publicist Arie Goode for making it happen.