How Angie Martinez Conquered Radio And Became 'The Voice of New York' | Blueprint

[Music] from intern to DJ to broadcasting legend Angie Martinez didn't set out to become the voice of New York but over the course of 20 years her contagious passion for hip-hop culture and her definitive interviews made Angie synonymous with the sound of the city this is her blueprint [Music] what was the significance of your mom being in radio as you grew up well you know when you're a kid your biggest role model is person in front of you all day and I grew up like in a house it's just me and my mom so she was my first point of reference for anything I remember like growing up and hearing my mother say things like all these jocks I hate when they love the sound of their own voice anybody who loves the sound of their own voice would irritate her and so I I always remember that I had that insight of just the other side of radio even from a kid just because I've always heard that from her so then you mix my love for hip-hop because I was such a hip hop kid obsessed and then my also kind of comfort in the radio space and I think that that's what were the beginnings like were the seeds from my there that first internship happened not in New York but in mine I was hanging out you know a handful I just was that into school I was just a music I was into like hanging out playing handball anything tomboy I was close I wasn't so all that except schools and so my mother found out eventually and she was like she shipped me to Miami and then while I was there I started interning at 16 for the radio station there so my mother sent me to live with my aunt then came down and she got a job as music director of power 96 Miami okay so I was like 17 at that point when she started working there missing New York given that you were not necessarily that engaged with school it's pretty ambitious to get a job at a real radio station at 16 know like well actually no no not ambitious at all my mother was like dude you're gonna do something it was probably in the summertime so there was no school at that time and she just kind of sucked me in there it wasn't really like a choice there's like something to do you know she was trying to help find something I think that's the thing with kids especially like young teenagers it's like just try different things because keeps you busy it keeps you open to the potential of anything you never know what you're going to connect to until you're put in that face so I think that was my mother's way of doing that it was like just trying to help me find so she got me an internship there and I was doing everything again Kloppers doing it but I liked the environment and I remembers like on air like going on and everybody like rushing around I just that energy that excitement of something happening and something live and something that other people were reacting to that was the energy I think that I was attracted to how do you end up getting a similar job in New York you know so I'm in this place and I'm missing I used to like act my friends let me tape because the music was so different in Miami than it was in New York so this is during sort of hip hop's true golden I mean a loud you know de la was thought tribe was coming I mean Big Daddy Kane he knows all that and I was like obsessed so I was so very much up on the music because I loved it from a passion point so when I was 18 my mother got a job as the program director of CD 101.9 which at the time was a jazz station it was a big deal for her she and I had been complaining the whole time I was in Miami I want to go back to New York I want to go back to New York she's like I got a job in New York we're going to go back I enrolled in Community College as a BMCC and I went and I got an internship at hot at the time and hot was like still you know dance music they were playing like C&C Music Factory and that type of thing what were your responsibilities as an intern a lot of the same thing like cold calling research calling people's homes like hi I'm calling from Media grew a bulb of media research what radio stations do you listen to do you mind if I play these songs and I would literally have a little tape recorder and I have to play the songs and the people would have to tell me if they were tired of it if they liked it they loved it they hated it and that was the station's research did you have any goals professionally I think initially I thought maybe I would like to be a program director where I could control the music that's played and do that and I always remember mom saying that really good program directors should do everything at some point in the station so that they know how the whole building works so that was my thing on the street team I was in programming I did the research I worked for the general manager I was like her assistant no real solid like specific goal but just that I wanted to learn everything about how the place moves and I just liked being there if they would have said do two of them at the same time I just would have buy what I wanted to be there all the time but I think once the notion started to happen about a full-time rap/hip-hop radio station that was when like I lit up so how did the news get to you you know I was like assisting in the programming department which meant I was still doing the research I was filing and I remember the changes slowly happening and conversations about adding little songs here and there to just kind of test them and of course we would add like the most crossover this is a dance station so you know you might get like an MC Hammer or like you know those type of like crossover hip-hop records but then came like House of Pain jump around and black sheep and you know those song started becoming like crossover songs and so then dance stations and crossover stations started like playing with those records mostly at night would be the only time you might hear them but it started happening slowly like that and then the conversations in the office the programming Department started feeling like there was a space for it where any idea of being an on-air personality sort of come into your head I haven't a lot with Flex like with Flex got on the air like because I had been so groomed in every department I knew how to run the board's I know how to get his you know the sheets that he had to read for his commercials I know had blanks coming to the station was a pretty big it was a racing but even when Flex got there they was still playing around they were still nervous they still had one foot in one foot out it was still like at night time the hip-hop was playing because Flex was so good at what he did when he was playing hip hop on the weekends and at night it was resonating and that helped make people make a decision to say this could be a 24-hour like hip-hop station there was none before that it was nothing to compare it to there was no blueprint at that point we were like making it we were literally coming up with it that it's so funny because I remember flex flex points of about 20 one time he played audio to on the radio so I'm like running his board and I was just like I'm look I was so happy it was just like joy of like oh my god we're playing audio 2 on the radio this is so crazy and still he's what he's mixing and he's watching me that's how it is you can add this girl while you was he's watching me like this girl knows all the words to this song like and he said that wasn't he like really first noticed me and I don't know we just kind of hit it off from there and then he they wind up using me to running forward for him the whole time and then the station started opening up to the idea of sliding him five records in in the daytime and then eventually just like full commitment and I remember we had our program director at the time it was like we're going to do it and we're going to own it we have every hip-hop artist coming in through these doors we're going to interview them we're going to get them on drops and start imaging ourselves as this we're going to own it we're going to be that and I'm so happy and simultaneously you're working with flex every night on the board and this is when it starts to occur to you that there might be a role for you yeah for the money like hey to be on the radio at that time he loved to play but he didn't like being on the lighter can imagine that right because I was talking to Mike ever a real sceptic we'd have to encourage him like know what people want to hear you have to talk and I'd be in there playing the commercials saying the jobs making sure it was on air I would be recording listeners and callers he was really into that people doing shout outs and things like that so I was doing that and then he'd get on the mic and he was a little he wasn't really comfortable so he won't wind up talking to me why is the girl in the room running the board's and he'd go right edge and I go put the mic on yeah play you know singing it kind of jet that was the beginning of a being on the radio together as hip-hop ascended the charts Angie saw an opportunity for her star to rise as well a promotion to primetime would put her voice in spotlight so how does one go from I sort of like side roll - getting their own show I took a little while not that not in because they were so aggressive at that point they were so like once they committed it was like this is who we are this is what we're going to do there weren't that many of us in the building like of the culture I really knew it you know and I was one of the few I was just in the right position but then also I was ready I knew how to run the board so if they asked me to go ahead you want to do a fill in it 3:00 a.m. not only would I show up and be happy to but also I got to run the board also I knew where the commercials came from I was you know I I was prepared when that when that time came I still sucked that was like terrible on the radio but I don't think they cared so much so I always tell people like you can't be afraid to be whack is that part of the process like if you never give yourself the permission to be whack at something then you're not learning anything new because you can't learn something and be great out-of-the-box like you have to be whack at first at the time were you cognizant that you were not great and that you were getting better I mean overanalyze I think I was just so happy to be there you know we were making no money but we would I was happy to be there I was I learned everything I could I was prepared and yeah it sucked at the beginning but that's you know I didn't say I didn't care how long did it take from those days till you ascend it to getting the afternoon spa when they brought up Steve Smith use program director at that time and my general manager they brought me in and they were like listen we are committing it's going to be a full-time hip-hop station we think you have something but we're you're never going to get good at it if you don't do it every day and I was like okay either they're gonna fire me or they're going to tell me to go home and practice every day I didn't really know what's where that was going but what they said was if you want to do it every day we're going to give you the overnight shift so that would be 2 a.m. after Flex got off up until 6 a.m. morning so from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. and it was the beginning of me doing something every day so then I would do it every day I'd be on the night and I'd be there by myself at the radio station there's no security there was no border is no nothing just me thank you alone alone in the building I used to put the lights on in people's offices because it was so dark so I would feel like other people were there you're hosting a show overnight yeah I would imagine with fairly low viewership or listenership how dare you sir but I know yes is you talking and playing records are you picking the records here pal are you crazy with whatever was being program yeah just there but I would I spent a lot of time on the phones okay so I would answer the phones all night and and grants it was a mellow night especially around 4:00 a.m. the phones would get really quiet she's resting so I would be like the phone would ring I'd be like ah hello 97 you know just would be so happy to talk to people so I would tape anybody who called and then I would like slice it up by the way when I say slice it up it's not like now on the computer it's like the tape and the machine and the chalk and the razor blade like I'm cutting the calls together and I would play them I would play them on the air yeah would you say that those conversations with listeners were the beginning of you developing your interview skills I think so yeah it was the beginning of like just connecting with people because you know it's not a normal thing to connect with that many people that you don't know in real life people don't do that it realized you meet somebody you're introduced you know they are but this is like strangers and so there is there is something to knowing how to connect with people that you don't know and so it was really interesting to just talk to all these strangers and cutting it up in a way that sounded was entertaining on the air so that was finally the beginning of me really learning how to do that with no teacher like teaching myself so what was it that you were doing those that attracted the attention of the program directors to have them elevate you and bring you into sort of more normal people time I think it was a comfort that I had on the air and also like a sincere passion about the music and an ability you know because aside from just being in the on your talent is also like a technical thing that you have to be able to do be on air I think it was just like an easy fit for them and I honestly don't know because it was really they took a chance on me I had no experience I didn't I've never done this I hadn't been trained or anything like that so they took a chance on me but you know when you're building something and you're starting something it's much easier to take a chance because it's not a lot of expectation within your own head did you start to feel like you had more concrete aspirations and ambitions yeah at that point I did I also I started to see what was happening with flex he'd go in the clubs and people knew who he was and the people that were calling were like hey flags like calling him by name there was a connection that he was starting to have that I kind of it was inspiring I wanted to be part of the conversation I wanted to say something - you gonna say - I love that phone so you move - overnight tonight I think with six depends okay six to ten o'clock how dramatic of a change is that in your everyday life as soon as you are on during real primetime Radio well immediately you know instead of like one person calling every 10 15 minutes you walk in those lights are lit you know people are calling just like is this movement there's still people kind of left over from the office they're just alive now then now there's like things happening and that's when I started doing interviews so now artists are coming in and I know now like in 2017 people look at that like of course that's like the normal radio but also at the same time they wouldn't really know outlets for hip-hop artists to do interviews you had like yo MTV raps which was great but it was limited and you had like the local you know buddy music box their local shows that and that was cool but it was it's different than hearing them live in the moment it's Thursday and that's where they are and I can hear how they talk and it was a strange exciting thing if you were a fan of the culture to hear your artists talking I would have 10 minutes off breaks just talking about whatever you guys look hi did you smoke on the way here you did you hungry you want to work chicken like ten minutes of just conversation and people just you know like connected to that what was the first interview you did that broke the radio initially it was like a lot of the local artists it was like that's a fake group home and a lot of New York and then as the artists started getting bigger I think it started getting more important you know and whooping hey foo those kind of artists started getting big I think it was more about the it was cool people were starting to get to know me and it was slowly shifting the culture but like not until probably biggie started to pop and bad for that whole people started to like really pay attention but I think the big greed of course was you know Tupac and Biggie around that moment was the first time when I felt the pressure of like oh this matters how did your yes philosophy about approaching interviews change from sort of the days of just like the chitchat of like a dust fix you're up here we're going on that - I'm going to break news around East Coast West Coast time when that whole thing was happening and Tupac asked me to do the interview I think that was when I started to realize okay let me really think about this what is my take what what do I want to get out of this and so I just started kind of like trying to assess the bigger picture that was a transition for me in terms of what I did I didn't look at it so small anymore so there's kind of taking stock and what it what it actually meant what we were doing like I tried you know in that moment I tried to do the right thing by everybody by the culture I tried to not instigate or over sensationalize anything and I really was trying to bring something good out of the conversation and we were really the only outfit there wasn't even social media I mean the radio social media we were Twitter we were Instagram if you want to know what's happening you have to come to us what was the moment where you felt like you had made it this is no longer scrambling up a ladder trying to hold on to a position but you are the voice of New York I saw like that I might have a moment where I was like god that was a good interview oh I love that but then in radio is like what's tomorrow it doesn't matter you could have the greatest month ever you could have seven interviews that are amazing back-to-back but the truth is next month you have to do seven more or ten more or you have to have another moment or you have to recreate so I I never feel like I made it I feel like that was cool that was even better what's next and so I still feel like I'm chasing something in the late 90s early 2000s you having ascended with hip-hop to kind of the top of the top in terms of media yeah you made a transition from being sort of a media you know journalist undercovers artist to making records yourself yeah what would the inspiration what was the motivation behind that you know the opportunities were coming man we had ladies night show happening and so on was like jump on this ladies night remakes and Kara's home was the first person to put me on a record and I was just kind of showed up for fun because I you know it was a hip hop kid I was happy he was like my idols because she just comes in Co you comes with Julie up I was like I'll try it I don't know I was gonna be wagon I and Redman was there and I did my first song and people kind of liked it even people so some people were like what the hell are you doing but I didn't care I loved it like we had so much fun doing it and then from that came ladies night and it just it was a thing that it wasn't a decision I made it wasn't like now I'm going to be an artist it wasn't that it just was something that naturally just kind of started to happen it's so like when I started in radio how I didn't know what I was doing but I was trying I was learning everything and I just jumped in and got in and granted making music was very harder for me being on the radio was something that kind of just was very natural natural to my spirit was that even though I worked hard but still was the natural kind of fit making music was way harder for me which is probably why that period of my story was a lot shorter but in the Vario part after decades of growth Angi fear stagnation and made a dramatic change that decision and the ensuing success only emboldened her to make another when she credits as the best move of her career over the next say ten years from that you continued at hot things seemed to thrive for many from the outside but they sort of change for you on the inside and eventually ended up leaving the station what happened well you really just get to it don't you know what I mean have a conversation uh you know in the long it was a process that happened I think the culture was shifting the environment was shifting a lot of the old regime had been gone and so it's really loyal to a place that kind of didn't exist anymore you know sometimes you just look around you some and things feel for him a lot of changes that would happen even the music was changing at that time by the way when I left hot they were really playing around with like playing different types of music and you me infected it yeah I was like there was some things happening transition and also I just felt like I just didn't I started to not feel at home there it's a lot you know there's a lot of things that went into it but ultimately I think the root of it was like I I just wanted to push I started feeling stagnant a little bit but then thinking about I hard and what I heart was doing in the space you know people can say in radio join for 20 years and then you look at these I heart festivals you look at these things that they're doing and I'm watching them from afar thinking that's cool you know and so I started to become interested in the company and then I think that slowly led to transition making that shift from hot to powers it's a two-party system so it's I'm sure some level is not an easy conversation to broach with the people that you work with that hot how did you sort of mentally prepare to have that conversation well I mentally had to be okay with it first one side to side that then the rest is easier not easy because you still have to tell people you love like you're not going to see them every day anymore but once I had come to the conclusion that it was time for me to you know shake up a little bit was time for me to like do something different I don't want to do the same thing for the next 10 years I want to do more then it was okay but I really feel like people that I worked with love me back it looks like if I know that this is the right thing let me try to write by everybody around me and then I know that the information will be received ultimately it'll be fine around the same time it seems like you started to think about your brand and sort of Angie Martinez Inc in a different way also you had you got a book deal you started doing the view and yeah being on TV more how did your your mind open up the aperture to think about how you can exist on different platforms and in different spaces it's like if you master something and how do you take that and use it in a different way okay so now I've learned how to connect with people and I know how to be on the radio and be comfortable in my own skin and I know how to do an interview and pull something out of somebody and have a real conversation and it matter to other people so how do I take all the all of those things that I've now learned and apply them to another space and actually make them even bigger and better that's when the book comes into play and it's like really still telling my story and telling the story of the culture but in a more intimate way how important to you is that as as far as sort of building this foundation as a national personality it probably the most important thing I've done in terms of my career because I helped me to define my role literally just opened me up when I'm writing and you're talking about these interviews and I'm like why does nobody ever talk about that moment that James er Kelly left the garden at 2:00 a.m. and ran to the radio station and I thought you know why because not well documented because it's only audio so people don't have the video clip that they see over and over again and all these hip-hop documentaries and specials this is like big piece of the culture that is like not well documented I really care about saving that and telling those stories I don't want them to go away there is a skill to like finding the nuances about what people say that are the most interesting without falling victim of just being you know slaves to the clickbait game overall what is the big picture overall what am i contributing overall what moves me what gets me excited in the morning when I get up to go to work how has the transition from radio to television and video been Peter I've always felt my whole career even though I'm doing radio I always felt that at some point television was going to be a part of that it's expect a lot of time learning that business and learning about what it takes and studying people who are on television and who people and a lot of people with may transition some other mediums with this radio or Koller and watching what works and watching what doesn't so in the morning I get up I go to the Title I work on some stuff for them kind of consult there and then I come down here work on the edge Martinez business what we're doing and get a line there and then and then I head down to the station have you never been years no really so there's come up with some new controversial it's all content so we do small content and content title then I go downstairs rock nation I get the engine Martinez business and then I head on over to I heart and get focused over their titles still a baby I see yes it's still like and so baby this is that's exciting to me too coming into projects that are just developing and Wow just get crackin actually having downloaded it for the J record I am enjoying it so far excited that makes me happy you mentioned that you're trying to nurture the next generation of voices yeah what are the things that you look for in those people do you care because if you care then we could work with you if you don't care you're just doing it for the moment you want to have a lot of followers you can have a great moment that's okay but I'm really looking for people who can have longevity I'm looking for people who could really matter and I think because our culture moves so fast like you could say something outrageous on Instagram get 2 million followers and now you're a voice so now you're a host ok but you haven't learned any of the really hot you know the things that matter for longevity and getting there and really creating a brand that resonates with people and that people will get to trust you and know you and rely on you on that next time I'm sure at some point you've had to sort of wrestle with what does the brand of Angie Martinez meet and what do you think that is yeah I do wrestle with that because I try to not over at self-analyze because I think then you start getting in your own head and you start kind of like playing to the crowd of oh well they said I'm I keep I'm real so let me drink sit here don't know and be really real you know I try not to over I just try to be present and honest and I care so I think there's something in that is something about the skill that I have of finding the things that matter finding the moments that matter asking the question I think people care about and that I care about it when you reflect on your career what do you think that sort of the attributes that have contributed to your success the most that skillset that I have on the radio where it's like packaging content packaging you and putting it in a way and serving it in a way where people get it and understand and relate and it's personal and you can touch it helping other people tell their stories that way and just you know continuing to find ways to share the lots share information share ideas and being consistent and having integrity and working hard I think people can people trust me I've had a good career doing right by people doing right by the culture showing up being present and being a voice for people who don't have one [Music] [Music] Oh [Music]

Channel: Complex Hustle

Views: 21,768

Rating: 4.856041 out of 5

Keywords: motivation, inspiration, success, complex hustle business, entrepreneur, DIY, hustle, complex, career advice, how to hustle, daily hustle, new york hustle, complex hustle, business news, entrepreneurial news, business deals, business development, tips, advice, start up, new economy, new success, Radio icon Angie Martinez, tech, The Voice of New York, local Miami station, New York Times best-seller, Tidal podcast

Id: K5-jZcE1LVo

Length: 27min 47sec (1667 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 21 2017