The longstanding complaint against Milwaukee's most prominent urban station, the Clear Channel-operated V100.7 FM, is that it hasn't supported Milwaukee music. Though once more or less true, though, that criticism now seems outdated. The station has made great strides in the last couple years spotlighting local music, most prominently on its "Heat From the Streets" segments, which give local rappers some excellent exposure on Saturday and Sunday nights, which served as a springboard for Ray Nitti, perhaps Milwaukee's most commercially promising rapper right now.
The station continues to re-brand itself as a real support system for local music with a new contest that will award a record deal with the label E1 Music. That's more impressive than it might sound: E1 is the new name for the Epic-distributed label that was called Koch Records until last summer. It's the home to Slim Thug, 8Ball & MJG, Dem Franchise Boys, the RZA, DJ Khaled, Ray J and Brian McKnight.
For complete details on the contest, visit V100's contest page; an excerpt of the guidelines is below.
V100.7 will be holding a weekly Heat From The Street competition leading up to a upcoming V100.7 event. Every week, there will be a total of ten (10) acts that will battle it out that night to get the top honors for that week. After four (4) weeks of competition, the final four (4) acts will be place on the v100.com website. On the website, listeners and fans of the artist will be able to vote for the act that they believe should get the recording deal. After seven (7) days of voting, the top two (2) vote receivers will get an opportunity to perform in front a esteem panel of judges.
