Blackout

Since 1976, when the busing riots in Boston sent me scrambling into the radio station at WRBB at Northeastern University, the music industry has been my life. During my very first stint in radio, I was Paul "Pure Love" Porter from midnight to 3 a.m., and I fell in love with the medium of radio and the impact I had on my community. Radio introduced me to women. Radio introduced me to cocaine. Radio introduced me to some of my best friends. And radio killed some of them too. Blackout is a ride through my whirlwind of media jobs, working for and with some of the music industry's most colorful, well-known and scandalous players. Blackout is an explosive look at the corruption that is running rampant in the industry. And Blackout is an inside account of how corporations erased Black identity from Black radio and mainstream music - and why I chose to fight back.