FEEDBACK ON MAYHEM MUSIC
In an earlier post about SURENO RAP, I asked the question why that genre wasn't getting the same regular coverage as BLACK GANGSTER RAP, especially from the ALT MEDIA who seem to have a charter to seek out the cutting edge and the new. I received an excellent answer from reader HENRY SHEEHAN who has written for alternatives for 25 years. I won't paraphrase because he makes a solid point that makes sense and does it better than I could. He states:

"Editors at these paper tend to be middle-aged and white themselves, and already wrapped up in one particular school of music or another. They're not affirmatively keeping SURENO coverage out of their papers, but their lifestyles and tastes make it very difficult for [them] to encounter it or a young Hispanic writer who is interested in it. In my personal experience, these papers never engage in any sort of outreach to members of minority communities and, though they'd probablly deny it, their staffs don't have terribly different perceptions of those communities than anyone else does."

This sounds like a thoroughly reasonable explanation. I asked for someone to answer the question for me and Mr. Sheehan did. Thank you.

I also got another response from a SURENO RAP fan who wondered where the hell I'd "been at" for not mentioning POCOS PERO LOCOS, the webcast that specializes in SURENO RAP and the fact that POWER 106 here in LA runs POCOS PERO LOCOS (a SURENO RAP show) on SUNDAY NIGHTS BETWEEN 8:00 and 10:00 PM. It's hosted by KHOOL AID and JOHNNY CUERVO (check out POCOSPEROLOCOS.COM). I should have mentioned that, and I plead guilty to not being more complete. But that sort of speaks to my point. With LA's humungous LATINO population and all those SURENOS out there, isn't it odd that there's only a single 2-hour radio show once a week on the dial? With the body of SURENO RAP work extant, a station could easily fill a four hour daily show and get nowhere near as repetitive as the eye-glazing boredom of classic rock stations.

You SURENOS out there, and I know you read this, let me know what you think.