*K. Michelle is literally getting the silent treatment from Radio One as the broadcast conglomerate has banned all of her music from the airwaves.
According to Jawn Murray’s AlwaysAList, Radio One owner Cathy Hughes issued a mandate across all stations to yank her music from their playlists. Several Radio One executives who told the site that listeners would no longer hear any past or present K. Michelle songs as well as tunes from artists that feature her on collaboration confirmed the action.
The ban stems from K. Michelle being a no-show on several Radio One promotional events while she was in the Washington, DC area earlier this month. Among those events is a breakfast for 50 K. Michelle fans that was hosted by Radio One’s WKYS 93.9 FM’s new morning show, “The FAM with Lil’ Mo and DJ QuickSilva.” The breakfast was set to be broadcast on air, but K. Michelle was nowhere to be found.
With the event taking place on April 1, the show’s co-hosts and fans at the studio thought it was an April Fools prank when they were told that the K. Michelle decided to not appear at the breakfast.
The reason for the 32-year-old singer’s no-show was explained by her reps, which mentioned to Radio One that K. Michelle wanted to stay at a Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington, DC the night before the appearance. However, that proved to be a non-option since the hotel was sold out. As a result, K. Michelle had to stay in nearby Baltimore, Maryland.
Rather than wake up early and do the hour-long commute to WKYS ‘ studios in Silver Spring, Maryland, K. Michelle’s rep told the Radio One team that the notion of the “Love & Hip Hop” star making the effort was not going to happen “because she wanted to sleep.”
Upon hearing about K. Michelle’s being so dismissive of her supporters, a fan at the breakfast, who revealed that she decided to skip her chemotherapy treatment that morning for a chance to meet the singer, was devastated.
With K. Michelle’s snub, Radio One’s top brass put the hammer down with its decision to pull all of K. Michelle’s music on every one of their 55 broadcast stations in 16 markets across the country.
Utilizing MediaBase, AlwaysAList noted that K. Michelle is not listed on the playlists of most of Radio One’s stations. The lone station still playing K. Michelle’s latest single “Not A Little Bit” was Detroit’s Hot 107.5 FM. Despite this, one Radio One executive shared with the site that “someone is going to be in trouble if they are playing it!”
The lack of airplay is making a noticeable impact on the charts as
“Not A Little Bit,” has started slipping. The Kelly Price-written tune has dropped from no. 20 to no. 22 on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop National Airplay Chart, the product of being down another 199 spins this week. In addition, the single took a hit on the MediaBase chart as it went from no. 20 to no. 24, down 231 spins this week.
The decrease is notable in light of “Not a Little Bit” being one of radio’s most-added songs when it was serviced to stations eight weeks ago.
Radio One’s stand against K. Michelle follows New York’s Power 105.1 FM, which pulled the singer’s music after her on-air spat with “The Breakfast Club” co-host Angela Yee.
Weighing in on the situation, an Atlantic Records rep acknowledged to AlwaysAList that while there was “an issue in DC” the site’s story was “incorrect.” The spokesperson went on to say that the station in Detroit isn’t the only one still playing K. Michelle, in light of her still being in rotation in Richmond, VA; Raleigh, NC and Houston, Texas.
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