{"id":1534,"date":"2011-12-08T08:24:40","date_gmt":"2011-12-08T16:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2011\/12\/if_you_cant_get_on_the_radio_g\/"},"modified":"2012-01-26T09:25:27","modified_gmt":"2012-01-26T15:25:27","slug":"if-you-cant-get-on-the-radio-g","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/if-you-cant-get-on-the-radio-g.php","title":{"rendered":"If you can&#8217;t get on the radio, get in a cab"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>VICE online magazine offers <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vice.com\/allthewrongplaces-2\/south-africa-taxi-hit-squad\">a fascinating bit of music history from South Africa<\/a> with a story about the rise of Kwaito house music in the 1990s. Since emerging artists in this street-wise musical style couldn&#8217;t get on the radio, they would give their demos to taxi drivers to be heard. Taxis provide a primary means of transport in Johannesburg and surroundings, making taxi drivers and taxi stands hubs of cultural opportunity. And as a local transportation system driven by locals, the network offered a unique distribution system for local musicians.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Drivers with cutting-edge musical tastes would build a client base, and even get people to wait for them over other taxis. And artists would build a new channel to audiences with the cab driver as the curator, rather than the radio station or DJ.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Even today, in the age of the Internet, taxis in South Africa play a key role in music distribution. Says one artist in the video: &#8220;if a Soweto taxi driver is playing your song, then you know your song is big.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vice.com\/allthewrongplaces-2\/south-africa-taxi-hit-squad\">Worth a watch.<\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>[via <a href=\"http:\/\/boingboing.net\/2011\/12\/08\/south-african-musicians-cant.html\">BoingBoing<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VICE online magazine offers a fascinating bit of music history from South Africa with a story about the rise of Kwaito house music in the 1990s. Since emerging artists in this street-wise musical style couldn&#8217;t get on the radio, they would give their demos to taxi drivers to be heard. Taxis provide a primary means [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}