This interview was conducted by industry website The9elements.com in Feb.2011
We’re here with quickly notable best selling author of the book “Sex Time And Radio” (The Raw Uncut Story of an On-Air Personality and the Decline of the Radio Industry) MC Marcus Chapman. Let’s get right to it…..
9E: When your book was first brought to my attention I must admit it was the title “Sex Time And Radio” that caught my attention. How did you decide on that title?
MC: Well it goes back to what was happening in my life ten years ago. In 2001 I had more sex and made more money than I’d ever had before. But from a career standpoint it was also the most disappointing year I’d ever had up to that point. Prior to ’01, things had been on an upswing. Coming out of it though, it felt like the industry was changing in ways that weren’t necessarily in my favor. Even though my skills as an air talent were at an all-time high, it was becoming harder instead of easier to get another full-time radio job. In 2002 I started thinking about other things that I could do besides radio, and one thing that caught my interest was music production. I’d always been a music historian who did a lot of reading and research, plus I had a big music collection, so I wanted to do some compilation CDs with different musicians and singers appearing on them, but with my name out front sort of like how Quincy Jones used to do. The idea was to do two compilations like that, but then the third release would be a double disc soundtrack to a movie, and the movie was going to be called Sex Time And Radio.
I really don’t know how I came up with that title. It just kind of hit me based on the experiences I’d had, and how different both my sex life and my radio career were from what everyone seemed to think they were. I also knew that the first letter in each word of the title spelled out “S.T.A.R.” and I thought that was brilliant from a marketing angle. I was taking an audio engineering class in Dallas at the time because I wanted some knowledge of how things worked in a recording studio. It was funny though because I hadn’t taken a class since I graduated from college seven years earlier, and I was doing the same thing that I did when I was in school before. In the front of the notebook I’d take notes on what the instructor said. In the back I’d be writing lists of songs and albums; including Sex Time And Radio. I stopped taking the class when I left Dallas and moved back to Chicago, and I eventually lost interest in the idea of producing music, but the whole movie idea was still in my head. In fact, more unpredictable events were taking place that made the idea even stronger than it had been when I first thought of it. By the time 2007 came around I decided to turn it into a book, and by November of ’08 I started writing it. That’s when the “Time” part of it became a lot more prevalent. I’d seen a documentary a few years earlier about the rock band The Doors. They had a huge impact on music from 1967 until their lead singer Jim Morrison died in 1971. In the documentary their keyboard player Ray Manzarek said that the music they made “captured a moment in time and perhaps a timeless moment that may live on into eternity.” That whole concept really drove me in the writing because that’s exactly what I wanted to do with Sex Time And Radio. I wanted to create something that captured the time I lived in, yet would also last beyond my time due to the quality of the work being timeless.
9E: You go into great detail about the politics and the “perks” of working in radio. Are there any things that you didn’t disclose to readers? If so, why?
MC: Actually I wouldn’t say I go into “politics” or “perks”, I just wrote about the real life experiences that I had. Now as far as what I would or wouldn’t disclose to readers, I knew there were two types of books that I could write: the book people would expect based on the title, and the book that went beyond those expectations to become something that really had an impact on anyone who read it. I wanted the second option. See, Sex Time And Radio is sort of a character study and a psychoanalysis. Imagine looking into the window of a doctor’s office and noticing a patient lying on the couch telling his story while the doctor is sitting in a chair taking notes. Then you look carefully and you notice something unbelievable about it; the doctor and the patient are the same person! That’s what writing the book was like for me. The movie script was going to be about the real behind-the-scenes lifestyle of an urban radio personality in the ‘90s & 2000s. The book goes a few steps further by examining what happens in a person’s life to make them want to pursue that lifestyle in the first place. By going that route, I think I made the career part of it more relatable for people who aren’t actually in the business.
But to get that type of book I knew I’d have to dig into areas of my life that I hadn’t really dealt with before, and my decision to do so was challenged almost immediately once I started writing. The whole book is divided into 5 parts, yet before you even get to Part 1 there’s the intro, which is split into two parts. First there’s the “S.T.A.R. intro”, and then there’s the second half of it called “The First Day of School”. The former piece is a normal setup for the beginning of a book, but the latter piece is where the depth comes in, and honestly I wasn’t so sure if I really wanted to share personal moments about me and my father. I mean, I already knew this would be a hard book to write but it was like “damn, do I really wanna go here with this?” Then I thought about something I read in a book about the music that came from Philadelphia in the ‘70s. Kenny Gamble of Philly International records told one of his staff writers that “if you want to write a hit you got to spill your guts!” In other words, if you want something that people can truly connect to, you have to go beyond the surface and dig deep. Since I didn’t want to write a “surface book”, I just started writing as if nobody else was reading it instead of writing as if everybody was reading it. I also took the approach that it was about 20 years from now, or that I was actually dead. A dead man ain’t afraid of a damn thing, so from that intro on I wrote without any worries of how others might judge what I said. That’s part of the reason why it’s subtitled The Raw Uncut Story of an On-Air Personality because of the approach I took; raw & uncut. The only way I didn’t disclose something was if it didn’t fit into the flow of the writing, otherwise it’s in there. The Decline of the Radio Industry part of the subtitle didn’t come to me until I was working on Part 3, but my approach was the same with that too. It’s a book about real life situations and it’s written in the everyday language that I use as opposed to being censored for the radio.
9E: You gave the chapters in the book very interesting titles such as “Records, Cards, Books & Panties” and “Sleeping With the Enemy”. What was the thought process for this?
MC: Well that just comes from me being a reader myself and knowing what makes a good intriguing book. To me, finding out why a chapter has a certain title is one of the most fun parts of reading, so I wanted to make that an extra dimension to the S.T.A.R. experience. Some books I’ve read just used numbers for the chapter titles. Whenever I see that I’m like “really? You couldn’t even come up with names for the damn chapters? How weak is that?!” (laughing) I modeled Sex Time And Radio after the Marvin Gaye biography Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye by David Ritz. It had chapter titles like “The Lure of Adoration” and “The End of Innocence”, so I wanted to have titles that were even more intriguing like “Sacrifice of a Sex Machine”, “Luther Vandross, Too Short, and the Rape Factor”, “JB, Aaliyah, and the Dr. Dre/Tupac Battle from the Grave”, “The 20 Dollar Challenge”, “Exile on Sex Street”, and my personal favorite, “Livin’ Like a Rock Star (And the Legend of the 3rd Floor)”. Plus I’m a music guy anyway, so I’ve heard thousands of song titles that caught my interest; often before I even heard the songs themselves. Public Enemy is probably the best example of that. A lot of fans & music historians consider their second album It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back the greatest album in hip-hop history. I remember seeing titles on the back of the cover like “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos”, “Terminator X to the Edge of Panic”, and “Party For Your Right to Fight”. Just the titles alone made me want to hear the record, and I could tell that there was some substance behind the music. I wanted a similar affect with the chapter titles for Sex Time And Radio, so I used my creativity to come up with as many great ones as possible that would make people want to find out what was being discussed. Using actual song titles was also a great way to bring familiarity and play off words at the same time; especially since I listen to different genres. I even used the names of a couple of groups as chapter titles; “OutKast” from hip-hop and the band “Rage Against the Machine” from rock. Now just what are those chapters about? You have to read and find out.
9E: While writing a “Tell All” book, at any point were you worried about making people (celebrities, former co-workers etc.) mad by possibly disclosing something(s) that the public shouldn’t know?
MC: Hell naw! (laughing) My motto on all of that is this: “documentation beats speculation”. I used real articles from newspapers & industry trade magazines; notes, memos, and pictures that were taken from station events; plus recordings of the actual shows I did to supply the information I put into the book. I also have a great memory, and in the cases where there was no documentation involved, I still stand by what I wrote because I went with what I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears. A few other people contributed valuable info that I used, but I asked them enough questions to make sure what they were saying was accurate. I wasn’t trying to just slam people and drag their names through the mud, but if something negative took place that affected the overall story it was going in the book. I ain’t got time to be playing “Dr. Sensitive” in here, okay? (laughing) A lot of this stuff happened many years ago, and a lot of these people made some real good money while I had to struggle. In other words, if something I wrote bothers somebody that much they need to get over it & get outta my damn way so I can get my money & make my impact. It’s like James Brown once said: “The Big Payback!” (laughing) Not necessarily “Payback” like “getting people back”, but more like my chance to get paid back for the years I put in without being paid what I should’ve been. Even if it doesn’t happen monetarily, the fact that the truth is documented and can’t be taken away is some form of setting the record straight or “redressing the balance” as I call it. I saw writing this book as a chance to set my place in history correctly. Without the truth being told & documented, a lot of people would view me and my role in it differently. Reading about what really happened, and the things that could’ve easily happened, creates a totally different view of me, the industry, and several other important events that took place over the years.
9E: Have people you mention in the book ever contacted you and if so what were their comments?
MC: Nobody who I wasn’t already in contact with. One of my former co-workers said it was everything he always wanted to say about radio. He’s the voice for BET now. A couple of women I make reference to knew about the book before it came out. Some of them were actually excited to find out what I wrote, while some of them were afraid; although I assured them there was nothing to be afraid of. I’m hoping I’ll hear from several people I wrote about who I haven’t talked to in years. The whole idea of re-connecting with people has always been cool to me. In fact, I think the saddest part of writing the book was knowing that I’ll never get to see some of the people or go to some of the places I refer to in it again.
9E: Sex Time And Radio was recently listed #2 on Amazon.com right behind Jay Z’s book. How does that make you feel? Are you happy that people have embraced your book and life so-to-speak?
MC: I wouldn’t quite say it’s been “embraced” just yet. We’re working on getting it to that point now. The amazon rankings are updated every hour, so I’m trying to get to #1 and stay near the top consistently. I thought I had a shot at overtaking Jay for a minute, until a book about Nina Simone shot to #1 and knocked both our asses down! (NOTE: the ebook version of Chapman's Sex Time And Radio briefly passed Jay-Z's Decoded for the #1 spot in the music/soul category of Amazon's Kindle store on March 5, 2011). I’ve never met Jay-Z, but it’s funny he’d have a book out at the same time as me because our careers have run sort of parallel to each others. He dropped his first CD Reasonable Doubt in summer ’96. I did my first professional radio show in summer ’96. In fall ’98 he had his big breakthrough to rap stardom with the Vol. 2-Hard Knock Life CD. I had my breakthrough to radio stardom in fall ’98 when I was made the host of a hot primetime show and hosted the hottest party in Chicago every Saturday night. He stopped being an artist in 2004 after The Black Album. I stopped being an air personality in 2004 after I fell out with station management. Then I got back on the air in 2006 and Jay started making albums again when he dropped Kingdom Come. Now I read in The Source a few months ago where dream hampton said Jay & his people pulled the plug on the autobiography he was supposed to come out with in 2004 because he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of people having his life in their hands. We’re definitely opposite on that, because I’m very comfortable with people reading my real life experiences. The more people who actually read what I wrote, the better I feel; especially if they give me feedback or ask questions about what they read. That’s embracing the project to me.
9E: Today it seems like everyone with a fan base is writing a book or doing reality TV. What sets you apart from your on-air radio counter parts like Tom Joyner and Steve Harvey?
MC: I’m glad you asked that question because now I can really go in! (laughing) Well first off, there are two different ways to view it; the radio angle and the book angle. From a radio standpoint, I’m connected to both Tom & Steve in a few unique ways. Joyner got his name “The Fly Jock” when he was flying back & forth between to host morning & afternoon shows on KKDA in Dallas & WGCI in Chicago respectively. I’m the only air talent of my generation to work as a personality at each one of those stations. Tom was gone from both of them by the time I got there, but we were on the same staff when I was at WTLC in Indianapolis. They had just added his morning show about a month or so before they hired me. Steve Harvey got his start in radio at that same station in Chicago and I was there when it happened. I was also there when he suddenly disappeared from the station in 1997, as well as when his national show was placed back on it ten years later. See, Harvey isn’t really a “radio personality”, he’s a comedian and an opportunist. I’m an opportunist too, but he gets more options because he’s nationally known. He never really wanted to do radio anyway, and once he had a chance to get bigger on TV and do movies, he left it. He got back on the radio in LA about three years later, and when the movie thing slowed down he used national radio to create more opportunities in the entertainment field. That’s where his books came in. If you notice, Harvey always gets a funny look on his face when people call him a “best-selling author”. I saw him on Brian McKnight’s TV show once and he even said it was sort of funny to him when people said that. The reason is because his books are like most other celebrity books in that he doesn’t sit down and write them. His books are co-authored by Denene Millner, which means he tells her what he has to say and she puts it all together. Now there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s common for publishers to hire real authors like David Ritz or Patricia Romanowski to put those celebrity books together. That way they get the star’s name to draw in the reader while keeping some control of the content the way they would any of their books. However, there is no co-author of Sex Time And Radio. I wrote it, structured it, conceived it, and I’m 100% responsible for its entire contents. Not only that, I didn’t need anybody to put it together for me because nobody on the planet could’ve put them words together like I did! (laughing) Somebody else trying to write for me would’ve been like Biggie, Pac, Jay-Z, Nas, KRS-One & Rakim all having ghost writers for their rhymes! (laughing) Because I come from a radio background, the book industry seems to think I can't reach people because I'm not on a national show everyday like Harvey. They're so busy looking for that “instant audience” they're sleeping on the potential of Sex Time And Radio, hopefully we can turn that around real soon so it can reach its full potential.
Now from an industry perspective, Tom Joyner is like the Motown of radio. Over the years I’ve heard George Clinton from Parliament-Funkadelic say “the music industry never wants another Motown”. The reason for that is Motown was independent and couldn’t be controlled by the bigger companies. As a result, no other independent Black owned label will ever get as big as Motown got. The same thing goes for air talent working in urban radio since the ‘90s. See, Joyner was a major air talent and a program director long before most current radio execs even got in the business. He already knows more than they do, he has more experience, and he’s doing a national show the way he wants to do it. So how can those execs possibly tell him how to run his show? They can’t, and this industry is as much about control as it is about results. They like the results Joyner can bring to their stations, but they don’t like the fact that they can’t control him. It’s too late to do anything about it with Tom, but one thing they can do is make sure nobody else coming up through the radio ranks gets as big as he did. It’s fine for someone who comes from outside of radio to get big on the radio, like Steve Harvey or Rickey Smiley, because they already had names beforehand that the stations could use to bring in listeners. But for those of us who actually come from radio backgrounds it ain’t gonna happen in this day & age. One of the industry sites did a poll recently of the Top 10 greatest air personalities, and no one on the list was under the age of 45. Is that because none of us were good enough or is that because none of us were given the opportunity to reach those heights?
Real talk, I could’ve been just as big with my generation as Tom Joyner is with his. I had everything you need to be a great air personality, and a few intangibles that you don’t even have to have. At one point in 2003 a well-respected air talent & former program director who’s currently in DC on WHUR named Tony Richards told me straight up that I had it. Radio people don’t throw compliments like that around, so I knew he meant it. But instead of getting promoted to positions that would’ve allowed more people to hear what he heard, I got pushed to the background. See, I worked for several program directors but my direction could not be “programmed”. I’m my own man, I created my own identity, and I never lost it. I come from a tough neighborhood, but I’m also a college graduate with a Bachelor in Communications and a Minor in Black Studies. I knew how to appeal to the hood without being ghetto, and appeal to the educated people without coming off bourgeois. A lot of cats can’t do that. I also had a strong appeal to female listeners without alienating the guys with a bunch of “mack daddy” talk. Being able to reach people on that big of a scale can bring a lot of fear from other people in the business. The industry gate keepers don’t fear having comics on the radio because they don’t believe the public will take what they say too seriously anyway. They’ll just laugh, say “he so crazy”, and wait for the next punch line. Even Steve Harvey for all of his independence, isn’t really a threat, but for someone like me to get too big is considered dangerous or threatening. I remember doing other jocks’ shows and their producers saying stuff like so and so wants to make sure you do the show the way we normally do it. I’d be like “tell that mofo I said go enjoy his day off and don’t worry about what the fuck I do in here! Is he scared because he knows the listeners actually like me better? You damn right. One dude even asked a chick if she’d slept with me, so you know his ass was scared!
The other big thing that separates me from Tom & Steve is that I don’t have anything to lose by telling you the full truth. I don’t have any national sponsors who could pull their ads or anything like that. That’s one reason why people in the radio industry, even those who like what I’m doing, haven’t really come out and said much about my book. They have to stay away from it because they don’t want anyone associating them with some of the wilder stories I told.
9E: You speak about women groupies that love men on the radio [MCs, DJs etc.] what is the craziest thing you’ve ever done with a fan?
MC: Well I have to correct you on that one because I didn’t have any so-called “groupies”. People seem to think being in radio is like being in the NBA or something. You don’t hoards of women waiting for you at the station when you get off, you don't have females scheming to have your baby so they can get paid, and Katt Stacks ain't showin' up to holla at you at the event you're hosting. Okay. Even if a woman is interested in you, it doesn’t guarantee anything’s going to happen. They could just be wasting your time or trying to boost their own egos by not getting with you. Hell, I had a chick come over to my place on a Friday night one time and tell me that she wanted to screw me, but she wouldn’t because she made a bet with her friend that she wouldn’t have sex until her birthday. This was in June and her birthday wasn’t until October! This broad used me like I was a damn guinea pig in a sexual experiment! I’m getting pissed off thinking about that shit right now! (laughing) See, people never think about stuff like that, but there are plenty of women who’ll play little games that can frustrate you. All throughout the book I wrote about my experiences with females from a very realistic point of view. The ones I did have sex with weren’t “groupies”; they were regular women who worked, went to school, and took care of their kids if they had them. Labeling a woman a “groupie” is an easy way to de-humanize her and turn her into some disposable character. It’s especially convenient for women to label other women like that because it’s a way of distancing themselves from the actions taken by other females. If you’re a “woman” and she’s a “groupie”, there’s no way you would do anything she did with a man in the spotlight. But if you view her as a woman just like you there’s a possibility you might screw a dude who’s made a name for himself on the first night you get together with him, just like that other female did. Besides, the majority of women are very selective in who they have sex with. Does selecting to sleep with a guy like Marcus Chapman, a good looking guy who’s making a name for himself and makes her feel excited, mean the woman is a “groupie”? Hell naw it doesn’t and I’ll challenge anybody who says otherwise. A lot of the women I dealt with on that level are still friends of mine to this day; even if we haven’t seen each other in over ten years. They selected me, I selected them, and in most cases we enjoyed each other’s company. It’s like they say in some of those reggae songs “come down Selector!” (laughing) Now as far as the craziest thing I did with someone? You'll have to read the book for that and judge for yourself.
9E: What message are you hoping to get across to readers, if any?
MC: There are plenty of messages in Sex Time And Radio, but I don’t pound the readers over the head with them. Chapters like “Sexorcism”, “Head Games”, “Subliminal Sedu’sa”, “Touch Me, Tease Me”, they all have stories that you’ll find hilarious, but also some that you can learn from and use to better your own life in the process, particularly on the “safe sex” side. The main thing is learning the real lifestyle that goes with being in the radio business; particularly from the perspective of a single guy in the hip-hop and R&B world. Whatever you think it’s like to be that person behind the microphone, believe me, it’s not what you think, and reading this book is the only way you’ll get a totally honest view of how it really is. I don’t just mean in the studio either, because it takes you to the clubs, backstage at the concerts, the after parties, the secret meetings, you see how the music is chosen, and a lot more. It’s a much deeper book than people probably expect it to be, and it has a lot of very useful info for music lovers, parents, and especially women. It also shows how the industry has gone from people being in love with their local stations to not even giving a damn about them in many cities around the country. How did that happen? You’ll get the real inside scoop in Sex Time And Radio. I’ll put it up against any form of entertainment out there.
9E: Thank you for taking the time to hang with the9elements today. Where can people purchase your book and contact you direct?
MC: You can get Sex Time And Radio in either paperback or ebook form from http://amazon.com/ and the direct links to the listings for both are on my website http://mcmarcuschapman.com/ or http://sextimeandradio.com/ The ebook edition can be read on a blackberry, android, iPhone, iPad, or even your laptop. You can download the free Kindle app from amazon then get it for whichever device you have. It’s also available for the Barnes and Noble nook device, and you can get that at http://bn.com/ If you’re not comfortable ordering online, you can ask any bookstore to order it for you and you can pick it up from them.
As far as contacting me, I’m on both facebook and twitter @mcmarcuschapman. You can also reach me through the “Contact the Author” link on my website, http://mcmarcuschapman.com/ In addition to the links to amazon, it also has an audio page where you can hear or download clips from shows I did between 1992 and 2010; including interviews with different people like Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Nas, Keyshia Cole, and Ice Cube. Plus it has behind-the-scenes video footage from in the studio and a club, as well as photos that didn’t make it into the book which are posted on my facebook page. I appreciate anyone who reaches out to me, so feel free to do so. Thanks to everyone at 9elements for having me, and to everyone at Leira Public Relations for making it happen.
We’re here with quickly notable best selling author of the book “Sex Time And Radio” (The Raw Uncut Story of an On-Air Personality and the Decline of the Radio Industry) MC Marcus Chapman. Let’s get right to it…..
9E: When your book was first brought to my attention I must admit it was the title “Sex Time And Radio” that caught my attention. How did you decide on that title?
MC: Well it goes back to what was happening in my life ten years ago. In 2001 I had more sex and made more money than I’d ever had before. But from a career standpoint it was also the most disappointing year I’d ever had up to that point. Prior to ’01, things had been on an upswing. Coming out of it though, it felt like the industry was changing in ways that weren’t necessarily in my favor. Even though my skills as an air talent were at an all-time high, it was becoming harder instead of easier to get another full-time radio job. In 2002 I started thinking about other things that I could do besides radio, and one thing that caught my interest was music production. I’d always been a music historian who did a lot of reading and research, plus I had a big music collection, so I wanted to do some compilation CDs with different musicians and singers appearing on them, but with my name out front sort of like how Quincy Jones used to do. The idea was to do two compilations like that, but then the third release would be a double disc soundtrack to a movie, and the movie was going to be called Sex Time And Radio.
I really don’t know how I came up with that title. It just kind of hit me based on the experiences I’d had, and how different both my sex life and my radio career were from what everyone seemed to think they were. I also knew that the first letter in each word of the title spelled out “S.T.A.R.” and I thought that was brilliant from a marketing angle. I was taking an audio engineering class in Dallas at the time because I wanted some knowledge of how things worked in a recording studio. It was funny though because I hadn’t taken a class since I graduated from college seven years earlier, and I was doing the same thing that I did when I was in school before. In the front of the notebook I’d take notes on what the instructor said. In the back I’d be writing lists of songs and albums; including Sex Time And Radio. I stopped taking the class when I left Dallas and moved back to Chicago, and I eventually lost interest in the idea of producing music, but the whole movie idea was still in my head. In fact, more unpredictable events were taking place that made the idea even stronger than it had been when I first thought of it. By the time 2007 came around I decided to turn it into a book, and by November of ’08 I started writing it. That’s when the “Time” part of it became a lot more prevalent. I’d seen a documentary a few years earlier about the rock band The Doors. They had a huge impact on music from 1967 until their lead singer Jim Morrison died in 1971. In the documentary their keyboard player Ray Manzarek said that the music they made “captured a moment in time and perhaps a timeless moment that may live on into eternity.” That whole concept really drove me in the writing because that’s exactly what I wanted to do with Sex Time And Radio. I wanted to create something that captured the time I lived in, yet would also last beyond my time due to the quality of the work being timeless.
9E: You go into great detail about the politics and the “perks” of working in radio. Are there any things that you didn’t disclose to readers? If so, why?
MC: Actually I wouldn’t say I go into “politics” or “perks”, I just wrote about the real life experiences that I had. Now as far as what I would or wouldn’t disclose to readers, I knew there were two types of books that I could write: the book people would expect based on the title, and the book that went beyond those expectations to become something that really had an impact on anyone who read it. I wanted the second option. See, Sex Time And Radio is sort of a character study and a psychoanalysis. Imagine looking into the window of a doctor’s office and noticing a patient lying on the couch telling his story while the doctor is sitting in a chair taking notes. Then you look carefully and you notice something unbelievable about it; the doctor and the patient are the same person! That’s what writing the book was like for me. The movie script was going to be about the real behind-the-scenes lifestyle of an urban radio personality in the ‘90s & 2000s. The book goes a few steps further by examining what happens in a person’s life to make them want to pursue that lifestyle in the first place. By going that route, I think I made the career part of it more relatable for people who aren’t actually in the business.
But to get that type of book I knew I’d have to dig into areas of my life that I hadn’t really dealt with before, and my decision to do so was challenged almost immediately once I started writing. The whole book is divided into 5 parts, yet before you even get to Part 1 there’s the intro, which is split into two parts. First there’s the “S.T.A.R. intro”, and then there’s the second half of it called “The First Day of School”. The former piece is a normal setup for the beginning of a book, but the latter piece is where the depth comes in, and honestly I wasn’t so sure if I really wanted to share personal moments about me and my father. I mean, I already knew this would be a hard book to write but it was like “damn, do I really wanna go here with this?” Then I thought about something I read in a book about the music that came from Philadelphia in the ‘70s. Kenny Gamble of Philly International records told one of his staff writers that “if you want to write a hit you got to spill your guts!” In other words, if you want something that people can truly connect to, you have to go beyond the surface and dig deep. Since I didn’t want to write a “surface book”, I just started writing as if nobody else was reading it instead of writing as if everybody was reading it. I also took the approach that it was about 20 years from now, or that I was actually dead. A dead man ain’t afraid of a damn thing, so from that intro on I wrote without any worries of how others might judge what I said. That’s part of the reason why it’s subtitled The Raw Uncut Story of an On-Air Personality because of the approach I took; raw & uncut. The only way I didn’t disclose something was if it didn’t fit into the flow of the writing, otherwise it’s in there. The Decline of the Radio Industry part of the subtitle didn’t come to me until I was working on Part 3, but my approach was the same with that too. It’s a book about real life situations and it’s written in the everyday language that I use as opposed to being censored for the radio.
9E: You gave the chapters in the book very interesting titles such as “Records, Cards, Books & Panties” and “Sleeping With the Enemy”. What was the thought process for this?
MC: Well that just comes from me being a reader myself and knowing what makes a good intriguing book. To me, finding out why a chapter has a certain title is one of the most fun parts of reading, so I wanted to make that an extra dimension to the S.T.A.R. experience. Some books I’ve read just used numbers for the chapter titles. Whenever I see that I’m like “really? You couldn’t even come up with names for the damn chapters? How weak is that?!” (laughing) I modeled Sex Time And Radio after the Marvin Gaye biography Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye by David Ritz. It had chapter titles like “The Lure of Adoration” and “The End of Innocence”, so I wanted to have titles that were even more intriguing like “Sacrifice of a Sex Machine”, “Luther Vandross, Too Short, and the Rape Factor”, “JB, Aaliyah, and the Dr. Dre/Tupac Battle from the Grave”, “The 20 Dollar Challenge”, “Exile on Sex Street”, and my personal favorite, “Livin’ Like a Rock Star (And the Legend of the 3rd Floor)”. Plus I’m a music guy anyway, so I’ve heard thousands of song titles that caught my interest; often before I even heard the songs themselves. Public Enemy is probably the best example of that. A lot of fans & music historians consider their second album It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back the greatest album in hip-hop history. I remember seeing titles on the back of the cover like “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos”, “Terminator X to the Edge of Panic”, and “Party For Your Right to Fight”. Just the titles alone made me want to hear the record, and I could tell that there was some substance behind the music. I wanted a similar affect with the chapter titles for Sex Time And Radio, so I used my creativity to come up with as many great ones as possible that would make people want to find out what was being discussed. Using actual song titles was also a great way to bring familiarity and play off words at the same time; especially since I listen to different genres. I even used the names of a couple of groups as chapter titles; “OutKast” from hip-hop and the band “Rage Against the Machine” from rock. Now just what are those chapters about? You have to read and find out.
9E: While writing a “Tell All” book, at any point were you worried about making people (celebrities, former co-workers etc.) mad by possibly disclosing something(s) that the public shouldn’t know?
MC: Hell naw! (laughing) My motto on all of that is this: “documentation beats speculation”. I used real articles from newspapers & industry trade magazines; notes, memos, and pictures that were taken from station events; plus recordings of the actual shows I did to supply the information I put into the book. I also have a great memory, and in the cases where there was no documentation involved, I still stand by what I wrote because I went with what I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears. A few other people contributed valuable info that I used, but I asked them enough questions to make sure what they were saying was accurate. I wasn’t trying to just slam people and drag their names through the mud, but if something negative took place that affected the overall story it was going in the book. I ain’t got time to be playing “Dr. Sensitive” in here, okay? (laughing) A lot of this stuff happened many years ago, and a lot of these people made some real good money while I had to struggle. In other words, if something I wrote bothers somebody that much they need to get over it & get outta my damn way so I can get my money & make my impact. It’s like James Brown once said: “The Big Payback!” (laughing) Not necessarily “Payback” like “getting people back”, but more like my chance to get paid back for the years I put in without being paid what I should’ve been. Even if it doesn’t happen monetarily, the fact that the truth is documented and can’t be taken away is some form of setting the record straight or “redressing the balance” as I call it. I saw writing this book as a chance to set my place in history correctly. Without the truth being told & documented, a lot of people would view me and my role in it differently. Reading about what really happened, and the things that could’ve easily happened, creates a totally different view of me, the industry, and several other important events that took place over the years.
9E: Have people you mention in the book ever contacted you and if so what were their comments?
MC: Nobody who I wasn’t already in contact with. One of my former co-workers said it was everything he always wanted to say about radio. He’s the voice for BET now. A couple of women I make reference to knew about the book before it came out. Some of them were actually excited to find out what I wrote, while some of them were afraid; although I assured them there was nothing to be afraid of. I’m hoping I’ll hear from several people I wrote about who I haven’t talked to in years. The whole idea of re-connecting with people has always been cool to me. In fact, I think the saddest part of writing the book was knowing that I’ll never get to see some of the people or go to some of the places I refer to in it again.
9E: Sex Time And Radio was recently listed #2 on Amazon.com right behind Jay Z’s book. How does that make you feel? Are you happy that people have embraced your book and life so-to-speak?
MC: I wouldn’t quite say it’s been “embraced” just yet. We’re working on getting it to that point now. The amazon rankings are updated every hour, so I’m trying to get to #1 and stay near the top consistently. I thought I had a shot at overtaking Jay for a minute, until a book about Nina Simone shot to #1 and knocked both our asses down! (NOTE: the ebook version of Chapman's Sex Time And Radio briefly passed Jay-Z's Decoded for the #1 spot in the music/soul category of Amazon's Kindle store on March 5, 2011). I’ve never met Jay-Z, but it’s funny he’d have a book out at the same time as me because our careers have run sort of parallel to each others. He dropped his first CD Reasonable Doubt in summer ’96. I did my first professional radio show in summer ’96. In fall ’98 he had his big breakthrough to rap stardom with the Vol. 2-Hard Knock Life CD. I had my breakthrough to radio stardom in fall ’98 when I was made the host of a hot primetime show and hosted the hottest party in Chicago every Saturday night. He stopped being an artist in 2004 after The Black Album. I stopped being an air personality in 2004 after I fell out with station management. Then I got back on the air in 2006 and Jay started making albums again when he dropped Kingdom Come. Now I read in The Source a few months ago where dream hampton said Jay & his people pulled the plug on the autobiography he was supposed to come out with in 2004 because he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of people having his life in their hands. We’re definitely opposite on that, because I’m very comfortable with people reading my real life experiences. The more people who actually read what I wrote, the better I feel; especially if they give me feedback or ask questions about what they read. That’s embracing the project to me.
9E: Today it seems like everyone with a fan base is writing a book or doing reality TV. What sets you apart from your on-air radio counter parts like Tom Joyner and Steve Harvey?
MC: I’m glad you asked that question because now I can really go in! (laughing) Well first off, there are two different ways to view it; the radio angle and the book angle. From a radio standpoint, I’m connected to both Tom & Steve in a few unique ways. Joyner got his name “The Fly Jock” when he was flying back & forth between to host morning & afternoon shows on KKDA in Dallas & WGCI in Chicago respectively. I’m the only air talent of my generation to work as a personality at each one of those stations. Tom was gone from both of them by the time I got there, but we were on the same staff when I was at WTLC in Indianapolis. They had just added his morning show about a month or so before they hired me. Steve Harvey got his start in radio at that same station in Chicago and I was there when it happened. I was also there when he suddenly disappeared from the station in 1997, as well as when his national show was placed back on it ten years later. See, Harvey isn’t really a “radio personality”, he’s a comedian and an opportunist. I’m an opportunist too, but he gets more options because he’s nationally known. He never really wanted to do radio anyway, and once he had a chance to get bigger on TV and do movies, he left it. He got back on the radio in LA about three years later, and when the movie thing slowed down he used national radio to create more opportunities in the entertainment field. That’s where his books came in. If you notice, Harvey always gets a funny look on his face when people call him a “best-selling author”. I saw him on Brian McKnight’s TV show once and he even said it was sort of funny to him when people said that. The reason is because his books are like most other celebrity books in that he doesn’t sit down and write them. His books are co-authored by Denene Millner, which means he tells her what he has to say and she puts it all together. Now there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s common for publishers to hire real authors like David Ritz or Patricia Romanowski to put those celebrity books together. That way they get the star’s name to draw in the reader while keeping some control of the content the way they would any of their books. However, there is no co-author of Sex Time And Radio. I wrote it, structured it, conceived it, and I’m 100% responsible for its entire contents. Not only that, I didn’t need anybody to put it together for me because nobody on the planet could’ve put them words together like I did! (laughing) Somebody else trying to write for me would’ve been like Biggie, Pac, Jay-Z, Nas, KRS-One & Rakim all having ghost writers for their rhymes! (laughing) Because I come from a radio background, the book industry seems to think I can't reach people because I'm not on a national show everyday like Harvey. They're so busy looking for that “instant audience” they're sleeping on the potential of Sex Time And Radio, hopefully we can turn that around real soon so it can reach its full potential.
Now from an industry perspective, Tom Joyner is like the Motown of radio. Over the years I’ve heard George Clinton from Parliament-Funkadelic say “the music industry never wants another Motown”. The reason for that is Motown was independent and couldn’t be controlled by the bigger companies. As a result, no other independent Black owned label will ever get as big as Motown got. The same thing goes for air talent working in urban radio since the ‘90s. See, Joyner was a major air talent and a program director long before most current radio execs even got in the business. He already knows more than they do, he has more experience, and he’s doing a national show the way he wants to do it. So how can those execs possibly tell him how to run his show? They can’t, and this industry is as much about control as it is about results. They like the results Joyner can bring to their stations, but they don’t like the fact that they can’t control him. It’s too late to do anything about it with Tom, but one thing they can do is make sure nobody else coming up through the radio ranks gets as big as he did. It’s fine for someone who comes from outside of radio to get big on the radio, like Steve Harvey or Rickey Smiley, because they already had names beforehand that the stations could use to bring in listeners. But for those of us who actually come from radio backgrounds it ain’t gonna happen in this day & age. One of the industry sites did a poll recently of the Top 10 greatest air personalities, and no one on the list was under the age of 45. Is that because none of us were good enough or is that because none of us were given the opportunity to reach those heights?
Real talk, I could’ve been just as big with my generation as Tom Joyner is with his. I had everything you need to be a great air personality, and a few intangibles that you don’t even have to have. At one point in 2003 a well-respected air talent & former program director who’s currently in DC on WHUR named Tony Richards told me straight up that I had it. Radio people don’t throw compliments like that around, so I knew he meant it. But instead of getting promoted to positions that would’ve allowed more people to hear what he heard, I got pushed to the background. See, I worked for several program directors but my direction could not be “programmed”. I’m my own man, I created my own identity, and I never lost it. I come from a tough neighborhood, but I’m also a college graduate with a Bachelor in Communications and a Minor in Black Studies. I knew how to appeal to the hood without being ghetto, and appeal to the educated people without coming off bourgeois. A lot of cats can’t do that. I also had a strong appeal to female listeners without alienating the guys with a bunch of “mack daddy” talk. Being able to reach people on that big of a scale can bring a lot of fear from other people in the business. The industry gate keepers don’t fear having comics on the radio because they don’t believe the public will take what they say too seriously anyway. They’ll just laugh, say “he so crazy”, and wait for the next punch line. Even Steve Harvey for all of his independence, isn’t really a threat, but for someone like me to get too big is considered dangerous or threatening. I remember doing other jocks’ shows and their producers saying stuff like so and so wants to make sure you do the show the way we normally do it. I’d be like “tell that mofo I said go enjoy his day off and don’t worry about what the fuck I do in here! Is he scared because he knows the listeners actually like me better? You damn right. One dude even asked a chick if she’d slept with me, so you know his ass was scared!
The other big thing that separates me from Tom & Steve is that I don’t have anything to lose by telling you the full truth. I don’t have any national sponsors who could pull their ads or anything like that. That’s one reason why people in the radio industry, even those who like what I’m doing, haven’t really come out and said much about my book. They have to stay away from it because they don’t want anyone associating them with some of the wilder stories I told.
9E: You speak about women groupies that love men on the radio [MCs, DJs etc.] what is the craziest thing you’ve ever done with a fan?
MC: Well I have to correct you on that one because I didn’t have any so-called “groupies”. People seem to think being in radio is like being in the NBA or something. You don’t hoards of women waiting for you at the station when you get off, you don't have females scheming to have your baby so they can get paid, and Katt Stacks ain't showin' up to holla at you at the event you're hosting. Okay. Even if a woman is interested in you, it doesn’t guarantee anything’s going to happen. They could just be wasting your time or trying to boost their own egos by not getting with you. Hell, I had a chick come over to my place on a Friday night one time and tell me that she wanted to screw me, but she wouldn’t because she made a bet with her friend that she wouldn’t have sex until her birthday. This was in June and her birthday wasn’t until October! This broad used me like I was a damn guinea pig in a sexual experiment! I’m getting pissed off thinking about that shit right now! (laughing) See, people never think about stuff like that, but there are plenty of women who’ll play little games that can frustrate you. All throughout the book I wrote about my experiences with females from a very realistic point of view. The ones I did have sex with weren’t “groupies”; they were regular women who worked, went to school, and took care of their kids if they had them. Labeling a woman a “groupie” is an easy way to de-humanize her and turn her into some disposable character. It’s especially convenient for women to label other women like that because it’s a way of distancing themselves from the actions taken by other females. If you’re a “woman” and she’s a “groupie”, there’s no way you would do anything she did with a man in the spotlight. But if you view her as a woman just like you there’s a possibility you might screw a dude who’s made a name for himself on the first night you get together with him, just like that other female did. Besides, the majority of women are very selective in who they have sex with. Does selecting to sleep with a guy like Marcus Chapman, a good looking guy who’s making a name for himself and makes her feel excited, mean the woman is a “groupie”? Hell naw it doesn’t and I’ll challenge anybody who says otherwise. A lot of the women I dealt with on that level are still friends of mine to this day; even if we haven’t seen each other in over ten years. They selected me, I selected them, and in most cases we enjoyed each other’s company. It’s like they say in some of those reggae songs “come down Selector!” (laughing) Now as far as the craziest thing I did with someone? You'll have to read the book for that and judge for yourself.
9E: What message are you hoping to get across to readers, if any?
MC: There are plenty of messages in Sex Time And Radio, but I don’t pound the readers over the head with them. Chapters like “Sexorcism”, “Head Games”, “Subliminal Sedu’sa”, “Touch Me, Tease Me”, they all have stories that you’ll find hilarious, but also some that you can learn from and use to better your own life in the process, particularly on the “safe sex” side. The main thing is learning the real lifestyle that goes with being in the radio business; particularly from the perspective of a single guy in the hip-hop and R&B world. Whatever you think it’s like to be that person behind the microphone, believe me, it’s not what you think, and reading this book is the only way you’ll get a totally honest view of how it really is. I don’t just mean in the studio either, because it takes you to the clubs, backstage at the concerts, the after parties, the secret meetings, you see how the music is chosen, and a lot more. It’s a much deeper book than people probably expect it to be, and it has a lot of very useful info for music lovers, parents, and especially women. It also shows how the industry has gone from people being in love with their local stations to not even giving a damn about them in many cities around the country. How did that happen? You’ll get the real inside scoop in Sex Time And Radio. I’ll put it up against any form of entertainment out there.
9E: Thank you for taking the time to hang with the9elements today. Where can people purchase your book and contact you direct?
MC: You can get Sex Time And Radio in either paperback or ebook form from http://amazon.com/ and the direct links to the listings for both are on my website http://mcmarcuschapman.com/ or http://sextimeandradio.com/ The ebook edition can be read on a blackberry, android, iPhone, iPad, or even your laptop. You can download the free Kindle app from amazon then get it for whichever device you have. It’s also available for the Barnes and Noble nook device, and you can get that at http://bn.com/ If you’re not comfortable ordering online, you can ask any bookstore to order it for you and you can pick it up from them.
As far as contacting me, I’m on both facebook and twitter @mcmarcuschapman. You can also reach me through the “Contact the Author” link on my website, http://mcmarcuschapman.com/ In addition to the links to amazon, it also has an audio page where you can hear or download clips from shows I did between 1992 and 2010; including interviews with different people like Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Nas, Keyshia Cole, and Ice Cube. Plus it has behind-the-scenes video footage from in the studio and a club, as well as photos that didn’t make it into the book which are posted on my facebook page. I appreciate anyone who reaches out to me, so feel free to do so. Thanks to everyone at 9elements for having me, and to everyone at Leira Public Relations for making it happen.
