Damage Control has had a lot of negative things to say about Los Angeles radio station KKBT-FM over the years. From the borderline racist antics of John London to the oozing faux cool of Theo, for years and years the Beat has stood for hoochie events rife with violence, horrible treatment of listeners on air, an abominable record of community service, and overall being run by a band of jackasses.

We're here to say that we hereby endorse listening to the Beat.

The Beat has been been purchased by Black-owned Radio One out of Baltimore (the promised land?) from their previous owners (we believe Chancellor Media, who own lotsa stuff). In the deal, the station took the previous owner's weaker LA frequency, 100.3 FM, while the station there switched places and took over the superpowered freq 92.3. It is the second Black owned station in town (long standing Stevie Wonder-owned adult contemporary KJLH is the other, former oldies station KACE taken over by white companies), and in a racially charged city like LA, a Black-owned radio station that plays hip hop is a political statement in and of itself.

Now, their website is still in transition, it seems, all the links going nowhere (as of July 11th the dropdown worked but the graphical links didn't, you could holler at the designer and ask what's up). Overall, though, things are looking ... interesting.

The station already has a kind of dream team line-up, with West Coast heroes The Baka Boyz (they did some wack videos a few years ago, but they also produced "Pistolgrip Pump" for Volume 10) in afternoons and NYC legends Ed Lover and Dr. Dre (but they have some incredibly boring and irritating white guy on the show half the time who makes you wanna change the channel) in the morning. EUR reported a few weeks ago that Steve Harvey may kick Ed & Dre out of a job as the mornings, but that remains vaporware. We must make special mention of the incredible Julio G, who's respectful, hang-with-your-homie style can connect the backpack heads to the hoodrats to the bangers.

We also hope Dorsey Fuller, former Rap Sheet majordomo and the Beat's Program Director, will be retained as he's one hellafied fresh cat who is cool to kick the good tunes and not eff with people too badly.

With this team on board, a hopefully stronger committment to giving back to the community (the old Beat management was atrocious), the Beat could develop into a better force of community. As members of this "hip hop nation," it's our responsibility to make sure they are.