Features: Under The Hotlamp

Under The Hotlamp: An Interview With Adam Bernard

Coming off yet another stellar year, placing 35 articles in over half a dozen major magazines including XXL, Soak, Foam, Elemental, metro.pop, Death & Taxes and Beyond Race, Freehiphopnow.com talks with Hiphop journalist and radio personality, Adam Bernard to find out what the man that’s used to asking all of the questions has to say this time around.

FHHN: Adam, how long have you been writing? Describe what the process has been like getting to where you currently are as a very successful journalist with your own radio show.
Adam B: The cliché answer would be that I’ve been writing all my life, but since I didn’t pop out of the womb with a pen and a pad I guess I can’t really say that. I realized writing was going to be my career midway through high school. The process from that point involved going to the right college (whattup Hofstra!) and then A LOT of independent hard work. I learned from jump that if I was going to succeed I needed to figure out the ins and outs of the “cold call.” Once I did that I started developing contacts, networking, and growing my rolodex (does anyone actually own a rolodex anymore?).

FHHN: Why do you write?
Adam B: First and foremost I do it because I love it. At the start of my career I wrote about sports and I did it as a way to be close to the game despite not being a professional athlete. I made the move to music and entertainment because, quite frankly, I wasn’t enjoying spending large amounts of time with sports writers. Entertainment provided more glitz, more glamour, more flash, more intrigue (and significantly more women). Everybody has at least a small interest in the Hollywood lifestyle and my interest is probably bigger than most. It drew me right in and I have been absolutely in love with what I do ever since.

FHHN: In your opinion, what are a journalist’s core responsibilities?
Adam B: I think it all depends on who you’re writing for and what type of publication it is. The lone aspect of journalism every magazine, newspaper and website has in common is that the story, whatever that story may be, needs to be told. If you’re doing an interview it’s all about getting the best information. If you’re doing a hard news piece it’s all about getting the facts and keeping your opinion out of it (which fewer and fewer writers seem to be doing right now). Regardless, you need to tell the story!

FHHN: Do you feel that there is pressure on writers to produce more controversial and tabloid like headlines, this being a catalyst for the degrading quality of journalism currently distributed to the public? If so, is there is any way to combat and reverse this phenomenon?
Adam B: A story’s headline can be just as important as the actual story. The headline is what hooks the reader and in this age of ADD it’s become harder and harder to get people to read anything that’s more than a few paragraphs. Sadly, the truth doesn’t grab people’s attention like it used to, so headlines get racier. I don’t think this is a cause and effect deal where the racier headlines have led to shoddier journalism, but if we want the trend of bad journalism to be reversed there’s a really easy way to get that done, don’t read it. If a publication sells a ton of copies because of a crappy story with a racy headline it only makes sense that they continue with the trend. If we don’t buy said publication they’ll eventually go in another direction.

FHHN: On another note, I can’t reveal my source but, I’ve been told that you’ve joined this increasing mob of individuals citing that Hiphop is dead. What's your response to this?
Adam B: My response is your sources suck! Who have you been talking to, Jayson Blair? Seriously, though, the whole Hip-Hop is dead idea is so silly to me. I am one of the crusaders attempting to tell everyone Hip-Hop is alive and well. Hip-Hop’s biggest problem right now isn’t the music and it isn’t the culture, it’s the audience. Hip-Hop’s audience has become lazy. They’ve adapted to being spoon-fed their music and their culture and now that they don’t like the taste of what’s on the spoon they’re getting mad. They’re blaming the food makers, they’re blaming the people feeding them, the one thing they’re not doing is getting up off their high chairs to look in the cabinets to see what else there is to offer. Back in the day Hip-Hop wasn’t played 24 hours a day on the radio and the television, and in some cities it wasn’t even on the radio at all. We had to search for the music. Hip-Hop’s current audience has either never had to search, or has forgotten about the search completely. Hip-Hop’s not dead, its listenership would just rather make that complaint than make any real effort to find something they like.

FHHN: What do you think music on mainstream radio will sound like five years from now?
Adam B: Five years from now mainstream radio will have pretty much the same mish-mosh of pop music, rappers posing as pop acts, pop acts posing as rappers, and the occasional talented artist sneaking through. Mainstream radio hasn’t been a catalyst for timeless music in quite a while. What it has been, and will continue to be, is a vehicle for lyrically harmless “fun” music. I don’t think people listen to the radio to discover great music anymore. Unless they’re tuning in to a specific program (maybe mine?), or internet radio show, for the most part people listen to the radio in their cars, or at work, as a way to get away from the banality of traffic or everyday work life. This is why it works so well and will probably remain the same for quite some time.

FHHN: Aside from writing and doing a radio show, what’s next on Adam B’s plate?
Adam B: I know this is going to sound pretty crazy, but I just try to go wherever the universe guides me. Four years ago I had never thought about doing radio, but one day I was asked to be a guest on a show (whattup DJ Cue!) and boom, suddenly I was a co-host and three years later I have my own show. My feeling is if a door is open, and what’s behind it looks interesting, I’d be a fool not to explore it. I hope that the door to the world of television opens for me again in 2007. I’d love to get a few guests spots on some of the music networks. Another door I’d like to see open is the columnist door. I think it would be great to have a weekly newspaper column about pop culture.

FHHN: Do you think there will ever be a time when you put down the pen?
Adam B: Nah. Even if my hand falls off it’ll still have a pen in it.

Check out Adam Bernard at these links... www.adambernard.blogspot.com
www.myspace.com/adambernard
www.soakworld.com/adambernard

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