Apathy Relaunches "Boombox From the Boondox" Radio Show
Apathy, Connecticut’s premiere representative to the hip-hop game, announces his triumphant return to the radio airwaves with his show “Boombox from the Boondox,” every Tuesday night starting September 25th from 9-11 pm on 91.7 FM WHUS Storrs, or www.whus.org.
“Boombox from the Boondox” first blasted the radios of Eastern Connecticut’s listeners in 1994, before hip-hop was getting any commercial radio play outside of major cities and enjoyed an extended run for eight years, when Apathy left WHUS to pursue his rap career in earnest in 2001.
Apathy has been around the world since then, rocking audiences with his unique brand of smart in your face hip-hop music. But now he’s back. And he’s grown up a lot. It’s been a long time since the spry 14-year-old Apathy first set foot in WHUS in 1993. Now 28, Apathy has learned a lot about how society works to alienate young people and he’s ready to try to do something about it.
“Boombox from the Boondox,” co-hosted by longtime friend and partner-in-rhyme Emilio Lopez, seeks to inform the kids who listen to hip-hop music, covering what Apathy characterizes as “real news and social issues that matter to the hip-hop generation.” Topics will include: racism, politics, religion, teen pregnancy, violence, jail systems, corporations, music and entertainment, all presented in the in your face yet intelligent manner so characteristic of Apathy’s lyrical style. The show will be punctuated by appearances by UConn professors, local and national activists and other guests that will seek to spread the knowledge usually reserved for college students to the masses, educating everyone involved. “I want this show to not be condescending to a younger crowd [like regular news outlets],” adds Apathy, “I want to come from the ‘I don’t know shit, but wanna be educated at the same time as my listeners’ angle.”
The first hour of the show will consist of talk, while the second half will consist of music, from “recent stuff to old school,” mixed by DJ Chum.
Born and raised in desperate Southeastern Connecticut towns, Apathy has been rapping almost as long as he’s been talking. He made his first appearance on a record in 1997, at the age of 18. Throughout his life, Apathy has had to deal with the stereotype of being white and from Connecticut. “I wish to God I had grown up rich,” smirks Apathy. Born to poor, teenage parents, his childhood recalls not privilege but hand-me-down clothes, government cheese and mirrors white with cocaine residue. By day, a young Apathy would learn empty slogans like “Just Say No,” while by night he would see his single mother contradict them. “It was the 80s, cocaine was everywhere. My mom and dad were doing coke,” he admits. “I think I grew up fast because of seeing these things.”
Like most hip-hoppers, Apathy has a wide range of musical tastes, but after his uncle gave him his first hip-hop record—Chaka Khan and Melle Mel's smash hit, “I Feel for You,”—it was “love at first sight” for a five-year-old Apathy. A lifelong commitment to the four hip-hop elements (b-boy dancing, graffiti, MCing and DJing) followed, as did tutelage in Zulu Nation legend TC Islaam's New Haven chapter.
A recent escapee from Atlantic Records, Apathy’s music has a tremendous following among emerging artists such as Rise, Stronghold and Jean Grae, producers like the Beatminers and Alchemist, mainstream heavyweights like Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda and thousands of fans around the world. Freshly off of a nationwide stadium tour with My Chemical Romance and Linkin Park, Apathy is ready to transform his commercial hip-hop successes into community benefit.
91.7 FM WHUS is a student and community run radio station at the University of Connecticut’s Storrs Campus. Started in 1915 as the first experiments into radio waves were kicking off, WHUS has been broadcasting an eclectic and alternative mix of music, news and views for as long as anyone can remember. WHUS programs a wide variety of musical shows, including polka, jazz, hip-hop, world, blues and many more. Their public affairs programs provides alternative antidote to the mainstream commercial media. WHUS broadcasts to an approximately 60 mile radius around Storrs, and streams live worldwide at www.whus.org. Brand new state-of-the-art studios, completed in March 2007 will allow WHUS to fully realize its potential as a diamond in the rough that has become the media today.
“Boombox from the Boondox” will air every Tuesday evening from 9-11 p.m. on 91.7 FM in range of WHUS’s signal, or worldwide at www.whus.org. (Press Release)
