Pace Press

Issue date: 2/9/05 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Hot 97 Radio Personality Miss Jones suspended after song controversy.

I know most of your e-mail boxes are flooded with petitions to boycott Hot 97. One thing I can say is that they are working. If you are on the Hot 97 e-mail list, you have been receiving an e-mail every day for the last two weeks. This is because its ratings have plummeted due to petitions that have reached as far as Pace's honors and leaders listservs. The petitions asked for the removal of both Miss Jones and Todd Lynn.

Those petitions got half of what they asked for. Two weeks after Miss Jones's morning show on WQHT Hot 97 aired the infamous "Tsunami Song," Emmis Communications announced that morning show personality Todd Lynn and producer Rick Delgado are officially terminated from the station. The "Tsunami Song" was a racial parody of "We Are the World."

Miss Jones herself, DJ Envy and Tasha Hightower were suspended for two weeks. Their pay was forwarded to Give2Asia. Miss Info, another member of the morning show, was not suspended because she distanced herself from the song. According to FMQB, Delgado was fired because he wrote, produced and aired the "Tsunami Song," while Lynn was terminated because of making offensive comments on the air.

Lyrics of the song include: "And all at once you could hear the screaming chinks / And no one was safe from the wave / There were Africans drowning, little Chinamen swept away / You could hear God laughing, 'Swim you bitches swim! / So now you're screwed, it's the tsunami / You better run or kiss your *** away, go find your mommy / I just saw her float by, a tree went through her head and now your children will be sold to child slavery."

Miss Jones once left Hot 97 because of a similar act against the late Aaliyah on the Star and Buc Wild show. Jones did apologize on the air after the incident was broadcasted around the city. "Protestors can't dictate what goes on the air," Jones said on the air during the first week of protests. Later Miss Jones said, "I apologize to all who have been offended by my poor decision to go along with playing that insulting (to say the least) 'Tsunami Song.' I should have known better and I didn't. So I'm sorry and hopefully we can move forward from this or I can move from this being a better hostess, because I am better than that, and I know better than that - and you deserve better than that."

Emmis Radio did comment on the reaction of the station itself. On Feb. 1, Rick Cummings, president of Emmis Radio, said, "The actions of the morning show crew were socially and morally indefensible and the entire Emmis family is ashamed by this. Emmis and Hot 97 have investigated this matter thoroughly over the course of the last week. Our decision to terminate Mr. Delgado and Mr. Lynn while suspending the other members of the morning crew sends a message that this type of insensitivity is utterly unacceptable."

It is unfortunate that the entire station and other great jocks including Funkmaster Flex, Bobby Konders & Jabba are affected by the actions of few. To the rest of us looking for a better alternative hip hop station: "Make the Power switch."

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