In case you didn’t know (or if you must be living under a rock), HOT97’s 26th annual Summer Jam concert is almost a week away! Summer Jam is a staple not only to the East Coast—but one of the most iconic hip-hop festivals today. Celebrating its 26th year this year, Summer Jam has evolved since its emergence in 1994 at the Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey when its lineup featured SWV, Arrested Development, Queen Latifah, and more.
Summer Jam has been the home to some of hip-hop’s most unforgettable moments, such as Jay Z’s public diss to Prodigy in 2001—in addition to bringing Michael Jackson out on stage—and the two altercations that occurred a decade apart from one another, resulting in 50 Cent being banned from Summer Jam.
This year’s line up has both familiar faces and upcoming artists that have been breaking the billboard charts. Some of the performances lined up for the 2019 Summer Jam include Cardi B, Meek Mill, A Boogie, Megan Thee Stallion, and more!
Behind the scenes of the hottest concert of the season is a team of individuals that bring you the livest hip-hop content through their rhythmic radio brand. One of the team members is HOT97’s Program Director, Pio Ferro.
Ferro has been part of the HOT97 family since 2015. Prior to his role, his work experience can be traced to working as the Vice President of Spanish Broadcasting Systems where he established Spanish radio as power players in a number of markets. His success brought him to CBS Radio to increase the market share of CBS’ Spanish radio stations in Dallas, Houston, Tampa, and Washington D.C.
As one of the prominent role players that brings you what’s hot and what’s not, Ferro’s position is one to definitely know.
Check out my interview with Pio Ferro below:
Keyz: What inspired you get into radio, and media in general?
Ferro: I thought it was really cool. I thought it was so cool to be able to, you know, just work at a radio station. Back then without social media in the 90’s—actually in the 80’s, I started late 80s—that was the social media. That was like, wow, you know? It’s what got everybody together; it’s what made people argue. So that’s kind of why.
Keyz: So, do you feel that the environment you grew up in gave you that exposure to media and radio?
Ferro: It gave me an exposure to music. So my parents immigrated from a Spanish country, so I had the influences like Celia Cruz and that tropical afro-beat—you know, that Caribbean sound. [My parents] assimilated, so I had that Beatles and the “American” sound, as they would call it. I was exposed to a ton of music, and it wasn’t only my parents—it was my grandparents and my great grandparents; they were all driven by music.
Keyz: What was your initial goal for Spanish Broadcasting Systems when you became the VP?
Ferro: So back then, their New York station—they thought it was doing okay, and I thought it could do a lot better. I thought it could get to number one in the market, and it wasn’t. It had like a mid-3 share or whatever it was, and my team thought that was anemic. So my goal was to make it the number one station in town and we did, and we got it there.
Keyz: How has working with CBS Radio as the VP of Spanish programming contributed to your overall experience as a program director now?
Ferro: Everywhere you go you learn, and the trick is to never stop being a sponge that absorbs knowledge. You can learn from anybody, you know? It’s something that I firmly believe, so it’s just experience that you get. When you’re very successful you think you know it all, then you fail and you go, “Oh sh*t, hold on a second. Maybe I don’t know it all.” There’s a great quote regarding, basically, the fallacies of success, saying, “Success is a lousy teacher; it seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” That is, of course, very true because I’ve learned more from my failure than success. The reason is—and you asked me about CBS, and [at] CBS, I’ve had successes and failures. Here at HOT97, I’ve had success and failure, and SBS same. We all do. If we all did the right thing and we only succeeded, I’d be a billionaire. [laughs]
When you’re successful, you think you know why, so it’s like “Oh, we’re number one in the ratings and this was why.” When you fail and you get beaten, and your ratings are down, then you start dissecting—then you go, “Why?” The forensic detail that you look for when you fail is more robust.
Keyz: You brought up HOT97, which brings me to my next question: What brought you to HOT97?
Ferro: So I started working in New York in 2000—and I hate listening to the competition. To me, hip-hop station in New York? It’s HOT97, period. Nothing else exists. I don’t listen to the other guys. I don’t care what they’re doing. They can do whatever the hell they want—I’m focused on what we’re doing. That’s all I can control, so that’s all I care about.
When I started working at SBS, you know it’s Mega and the smaller station PAT, I had always loved hip-hop, so it was like “Oh, plug into HOT97.” So I tuned into HOT97 and I didn’t feel bad about it. I always liked the vibe, the feel, the energy. It’s like when you tune into 97.1, it was like a different—[sighs] it wasn’t even the radio anymore! It’s like you were in another universe. It just sounded different. It just sounded…better, so I fell in love with it. It’s one of those, “in my wildest dreams will this opportunity ever come.”
When you’re a program director, if you’re good, you have a job. If you have a job and an opportunity comes up that you want but you’re under contract or you can’t do it for whatever, you can’t take the job. It just so happened that I had a situation at Power 96 in Miami where the station who owned it [Beasley] to CBS. I had exited CBS to come do the station, so I don’t know if I was their favorite person, plus they already had different plans. It was a brand new company that was buying several of the Beasley broadcasting stations, so they basically—very cordially, or what not—they were like, “Yes, there’s the door. See ya!” [laughs]
It just so happened that the work that I had done at Power had caught the attention of the president of Programming for Emmis, the parent company of HOT97. The stars aligned—I was let go of a job, and the timing was perfect. The timing could not have been better. My last day at Power was the day before Thanksgiving, and I was here that January. I started talking to Emmis right away. I was here in December, and I met the general manager at the time, Deon Levingston.
Everything happens for a reason. Everything in life is a stepping stone.
Keyz: Fast forward—you’ve been the program director at HOT97 for almost 5 years. In your opinion, how have you seen the station and brand of HOT97 evolve?
Ferro: So when I got here, Angie had left several months before. The staff that was here, it’s been changed quite a bit. Nessa hadn’t gotten here yet. I didn’t analyzed too much of before I got here. I just started working on the things that I thought the station needed to improve as of January 2015. So we re-focused the music, we made sure that hip-hop was truly the foundation of the radio station, and it helped a lot that we started getting some really good stuff. When I got here, Nicki had released an album that was really good. If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late from Drake had just came out.
The music really helped, but I think Ebro’s attention to the morning show and what he’s done there has helped the radio station so much; Nessa just coming into her own [and] taking over after somebody so well known in the city as Angie. My thing has been to make sure the music is on target, making sure our personalities have everything they need to succeed, and nurture their brand and build their brand, because it makes our brand stronger.
Keyz: What is your vision currently as the program director for HOT97?
Ferro: The vision is to make HOT97 an indispensable source for hip-hop, for the culture, for the music, [and] for the fans. Through the content that we mirror and we share, to the music—like when DJ Khaled releases an album and a label wants to go for this record or that record, we’re tastemakers. We go, “Well, we’re gonna go with this record.” We’re currently playing five songs off of Khaled’s new album. The way I see it, it feeds the brand. If we don’t do it, who the hell else is gonna do it? You want to be an example as to how it should be done, and how it should be done correctly.
Keyz: You mentioned culture. What does culture mean to you, and in your role, how do you preserve culture?
Ferro: My culture is my hispanic background. Culture is, you know, is what we live in. It’s how we act, it’s how we deal with things, and it’s how we look at things. When you’re dealing with a brand like HOT97, you can’t just hyper focus on one aspect because then you'd be leaving, you know, 95% of the rest of the people out so you want to be as broad as possible within the Hip Hop culture.
So, the trick to it is having as many people that can represent their little bits of culture and listen and make sure that nobody's getting left behind. I think about the different backgrounds that we have here at Hot 97: you have Guatemalan, you have Colombian, you have obviously African-American, you have Jamaican. HOT97 is a melting pot, but we all share do you know that passion for the music. We understand how important HOT97 is, and we check ourselves.
Keyz: As a Latino identifying man, how do you feel that the Latino community has influenced the hip hop industry?
Ferro: I think West Coast hip-hop is more influenced by Latinos. I think East Coast, in particular Northeast, is more African-American. Like here, I firmly believe that African-American leads taste and we follow, and I believe that in LA—not just in LA, I’m generalizing—in the West Coast, like I think it's more of a Latino thing, and if you listen to the music, you hear differences. It usually doesn't take you more than 2 seconds to go, “Oh that’s a West Coast beat,” “Oh, that’s the South”, or “That's Miami!” All of that is influenced by, you know, black and brown. There's so much sharing where we live and where we eat and where we are going to school, that the the the tastes aren't that far apart, at least in my experience.
Keyz: Who are some of your favorite artists right now?
Ferro: Oh, that’s a good one! [laughs] I love J. Cole and I love Kendrick Lamar. The only Kendrick record that I haven’t really been fond of is Untitled. I need to see the title. [laughs] I have the record, I have the vinyl sealed at home. I have listened to it on Apple Music and stuff. When J. Cole released “Middle Child”, I was the first one here to say, “Holy f*ck, that’s gonna be a smash,” and it has been for us. It has been our number one record for several weeks in a row. And on the more mainstream stuff, like, who can’t like Drake? I love Drake. I love Remy Ma, she’s one of those people, to me, that can improvise like nobody else and she’s a sweetheart so I love her. I’m of a certain age, so when I think of Fat Joe and just listening to him and Eminem—that connection. For current, I get really excited when J. Cole and Kendrick drop something, I’m just like “Yeah! I’m ready.” When I was growing up, it was Run DMC, LL Cool J—and I’m from Miami, so Too Live Crew (spellcheck) and all these hometown people.
Keyz: How did you and DJ Khaled meet?
Ferro: I’ve known about Khaled forever. It’s very funny because Khaled used to work for a radio station in Miami, and he was pretty successful; he used to work for WEDR in Miami. He started producing music and he would drop his name, you know, like he does [mimicking DJ Khaled] “DJ KHALED!” When I got to work at Power, I’m listening to the songs he produced, and those parts was edited it out. I was like, “Why?” It was weird for a song not to say it. So anyways, somebody told him and he found out, he said he appreciated that. So we just started talking, you know, “Whenever you’re in town, let me know!”-blah, blah, blah. He’s just a freaking great guy. How can you not love Khaled? When you think of people that work really hard, Khaled is a workhorse. But it’s not like we’re gonna hang out on his private plane or I’m gonna baby sit Asahd. [laughs]
Keyz: What advice do you have to offer upcoming artists, DJs, or anyone interested in the music industry?
Ferro: I could give you the bullsh*t answer and tell you, “Never stop, follow your dreams,” but I want to give you a real answer. My advice is, “Never stop, follow your dreams.” [laughs] When I was a kid, I didn’t have a computer in my room that I could create a beat on and I didn’t have a buddy that knew how to do this and that with GarageBand or Pro Tools, or whatever—but now, a lot of people do. A lot of people have set up their homes and they're doing things and they're pretty decent, so competition is at an all-time high, and so is distribution. My biggest advice is, when you think of an artist like Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, or Jay Z, they stuck true with what they felt and they didn’t dilute it for popularity. Just like Michelangelo and Picasso wouldn’t change their art form to appease the public. Like, “This is what I do. If you like it? Great. If you don’t like it? Great.” Do what comes natural to you. Do whatever it is that makes you, you. It takes time, it happens quicker for some people. Let your art form speak for you.
Make sure you stay locked in with HOT97 before and after Summer Jam! For tickets to HOT97’s Summer Jam 2019 concert, check them out here.
Just one dose of HOT97 wasn’t enough? Check out my interview with DJ Enuff here!