ABOUT ME
Mista Montana is the founder and manager of Conspiracy Worldwide Radio (http://conspiracyblog.net) - one of the web’s most respected hip hop radio shows, downloaded by over 190 countries each month.
The Friday Night Live Show, Mista Montana’s linchpin broadcast, is aimed at a hip hop core community that crave records that actually reinforce their affiliation and dedication to the beautiful hip hop culture and artists with integrity and talent.
This show has successfully brought something more than the regular, watered-down ‘we got new Wayne!’ radio that has come before it.
Now reaching a total of 190 countries, Conspiracy Worldwide Radio has become a powerhouse in online hip hop media and is embraced by many of the leading hip hop websites with each episode it publishes.
Mista Montana has worked with and interviewed such people as:
Legends:
E-40 - Public Enemy - Run DMC - KRS 1 - Marley Marl - EPMD -The Sugarhill Gang - Kurtis Blow - Grandmaster Caz - Schooly D - MC Lyte - Masta Ace - Craig G - MC Shan - Special Ed - Professor Griff - Paris - Keith Shocklee - Arabian Prince - Tim Dog - Chubb Rock - D Nice - Lord Finesse - Spice 1 - Geto Boys - OC - Jeru Tha Damaja - Guru - Freddie Foxx - Bran Nubian - Lords Of The Underground - Smif N Wessun - Black Moon - Cypress Hill - Onyx - Cappadonna - Grand Daddy IU -Wise Intelligent - Pharcyde - Digital Underground - Camp Lo - Ski - Domingo - Kam - The DOC - Percee P - Donald D - Alkaholiks - Shyiem The Rugged Child - Shabazz The Disciple - The Beatnuts -Silver Bullet - Blade - Huntkillbury Finn - Hijack - Gunshot -Digable Planets -Shade Sheist - Wu Tang Clan - MF Grimm - Large Professor - Showbiz & AG -
Modern Mainstream:
Lil Wayne -Shady Records - G Unit - Mobb Deep - Styles P -Bizarre (D-12) - Daz Dillinger - Stat Quo - Bobby Creekwater - Papoose - Ca$his - Frekey Zekey (Dipset President) - Dame Grease - G-Dep - Quan - Santalina - Warren G - Keith Murray - Spider Loc - 40 Glocc - Bishop Lamont - Lil Flip - Capone (CNN) - Rah Digga - Sam Scarfo - Serius Jones - Yukmouth - Ali Vegas - Tre Williams - Kim Osorio - Elliot Wilson - Peter Rosenberg - Lord Sear - Coniyac - Joe Budden - Smoke DZA - Jay Rock - Nottz - Freddie Gibbs - The Alchemist -
Modern Underground:
DJ Premier - Kool Keith - RZA - GZA - Immortal Technique - Chino XL - Canibus - Crooked I - Killah Priest - Hasan Salaam - Raekwon - Redman - Guilty Simpson - Grime - Dilated Peoples - AOTP - Reef Da Lost Cauze - Chief Kamachi - Rass Kass - Columbo Black - Talib Kweli - Sabac Red - Necro - Sean Price - Pumpkinhead - Brooklyn Academy - Tonedeff - NYOIL - Del Tha Funke Homosapien - Rugged Intellect - 9th Wonder - Copywrite - Aesop Rock - Atmosphere - Little Brother - Defari - 7L & Esoteric - J Zone - El Da Sensai - Jojo Pellegrino - Blue Sky Black Death - Vakill - Verbal Kent - Akir - Southpaw - Thirstin Howl III - Pacewon - Vast Aire - Yak Ballz - Brother Ali - Skyzoo - Supastition - Juice - Celph Titled - Krondon - Hell Razah - Akrobatik - Louis Logic - Jakki The Motormouth - Prince Po - Punchline - Wordsworth - Access Immortal - PackFM - Outerspace - Diabolic - Icon The Mic King - Q Unique - Freestyle (Arsonists) - Mr SOS - Mykil Miers - Wordsmith - DJ Eclipse - Reks - Q Unique - One Be Lo - Poison Pen- Cormega - People Under The Stairs - MURS - Brother Ali - Planet Asia - Jake One
UK Pioneers:
Jehst - TY - Wolftown Recordings - Kashmere - Sir Smurf Lil - Insane Macbeth - Secondson - Marga Man - Hoodz Underground - Mical Parknsun - Dubbledge - Cross Bone T - Manage - Skrein - DJ IQ - Yungun - Baby J - Precha - Mr T2ibbs - Rising Son - Life MC - Rufmouf - Arrogance & Nemesis - JAI - Skandal - Truth - Stag P - Skinny9er - Monkee Monks - The Elementz - C-Mone - Scorzayzee - Endemic - Associated Minds - Iron Braydz - Cyrus Malachi
Non hip hop:
Tom Cruise - Hillary Clinton - Peter North - Paul Daniels - Douglas Bickford - Ben Dover - Ron Jeremy - Angel Kelly - Paul Cross - Courtney Cox - Doug Stanhope - Traci Islands - Jeff Trenkle - Heather Hunter - Rick Ross - Frank Lucas - Harry Shearer (The Simpsons voices) - Charlie Sheen
LISTEN TO ALL OF OUR SHOWS HERE
Mista Montana Biography
The Early Years
Mista Montana began his passion for music and radio before the age of ten, creating radio show tapes for his primary school friends. Inspired by such radio shows as Jeff Young’s National Fresh and Mike Allen, these TDK C90 tapes, recorded on a primitive tape-to-tape Hitachi cassette player with a built in mic, contained tracks ripped from early BBC Radio 1 rap shows, interjected with talk and special “guests” (including family members and members of the public) . As rap music was still a relatively unknown element amongst many in the UK, Montana’s main focus was to simply “show” his entire school this new music he had discovered and soon his tapes achieved cult status, with people outside of his school and even his teachers, asking for copies. Upon reaching secondary school, Montana developed his recording equipment and furthered his notoriety for radio show tapes by selling a successful range of his shows across Doncaster, with many of the time’s key underground dance music specialist shops buying stock to sell on.
As Montana grew, so did this passion for broadcasting and in the early 90s he ventured forth into the world of pirate radio, performing his first show on a massively recognized local Nottinghamshire pirate station at the tender age of 14. Filled with nerves but enough determination and new music to hide it, this first live to air broadcast spurred him on to make radio his full-time vocation. This inspiration saw him bounce across almost every pirate radio station in Nottinghamshire and Sheffield, each time delivering a show which challenged and changed the station’s status quo regarding radio show format and standards. But even as a young adult, simply broadcasting on radio stations without any control over the entire stations direction, simply wasn’t enough and in the late 90s he took to the air with his own FM pirate – a move which was to satisfy his hunger to have complete creative control and signified the beginnings of Conspiracy Worldwide Radio as it is today.
Conspiracy Worldwide Radio – the beginnings
In September 2004, Montana launched his first internet radio station – Conspiracy Worldwide Radio. This began as an occasional streaming radio station which adopted a very raw, pirate radio style approach and a play list which was made up of music sent in directly by listeners, often while Montana was live on air. Almost instantly, artists reacted to what he was doing and wanted their own show on Conspiracy Worldwide Radio, as they were offered a 100% regulation-free platform, allowing for freedom in terms of song choice and genre style. So Montana enlisted the help of such hip hop icons as Jeru The Damaja, Lord Jazz, Access Immortal and Donald D, who all broadcast their own weekly radio shows alongside Montana’s own flagship show. This was breaking new ground, as rather than simply playing music and/or interviewing artists as separate entities, Montana actually gave the artist their own radio show and own responsibilities, involving them directly in the entire station. Even though Conspiracy had began to attract awe-inspired attention from the hip hop community, Mista Montana still wanted to offer something even more unique and in 2006 he launched what was to become one of the most discussed and important radio shows in modern hip hop, The Friday Night Live Show.
The Friday Night Live Show
As the internet market began to flood with ‘Average Joes’ playing their mp3 collection and murmuring into their Radio Shack microphones, Montana knew he had to evolve and develop something which could not be replicated. The Friday Night Live Show as it is now know began its evolution in 2006 with masses of live guests each month and brand new, often non-web hip hop. While many were claiming ‘hottest radio show on the web’, Montana wanted to make sure that he could create something that stood head and shoulders above any competition so, in addition to supplying the latest, hand-picked, quality music, he decided to try out a couple of artists as live guests via phone. This was an instant success, his first guest being none other than UK legend and similar self-made pioneer, Blade. Although this was new territory, Montana settled in quickly and as weeks passed the live guest roster increased and by March 2006, each show was filled with live guests, from recognized artists to newcomers. The show had quickly become much more than a radio show playing records. But some say it grew too fast and that nobody, not even Mista Montana, could be as ready for so much in so little time – an assumption evidenced to some extent by an unfortunate incident in May 2006 involving Mista Montana and one of his more controversial guests.
The ‘Incident’
A lot had happened in a very short space of time and Montana had gone from a driven pirate radio DJ on local radio to a man talking to some of the most important people in hip hop live on a globally-listened to radio show. His emotions were as high as his paranoid insecurities about what he was doing and in spring 2006 he conducted a landmark ‘interview’ in which he released all of the fears, frustrations and excitement he had been repressing for many months. Unfortunately, this was to be at the expense of an awkward interviewee and Montana came close to destroying everything he had made and everything he was set to make happen in the forthcoming years. His unbelievably aggressive and manic outburst, fortunately mirrored by said interviewee at the time, saw Montana go from a man with a good but still relatively underground net radio show, to an internet notoriety in the space of a week and the whole hip hop community, and even The Sun newspaper, were talking about the unfortunate interview ‘incident’.
Although the interviewee accepted his next day apology wholeheartedly, Montana was ready to scrap his show and accept that such actions could never be repaired. He broadcast what he thought was to be his last Friday Night Live after such action, expecting a further tirade of abuse and dismissal from the hip hop community for what he had done, only to be met with listener figures which shadowed previous months. Montana’s Friday Night Live Show had been discovered and from what turned out to be the best advert for his show that money could have bought, the massive influx of new interest inspired Montana to learn from his mistakes and continue to develop the show into something that could top charts and actively challenge mainstream platforms such as the BBC and 1Xtra.
The Friday Night Live Show – the next level
With renewed interest and a brand new audience, Montana set about reaching new heights in term of show format and the calibre of guests who featured on each show. He now had a point to prove and soon he was converting many of those who had counted him out and simply come to hear him make more shock radio. Of the many new people attracted by the press, was a listener from Wales. Initially expecting another run-of-the-mill internet radio show, this listener was instantly drawn to what Montana was creating and soon became a regular listener, actively offering critical advice and musical recommendations each week. Recognizing the passion this listener seemed to have, Montana invited him to appear on the show in a loose co-host role. Almost straight away, this listener had arranged guests and was interviewing them alongside Montana and by late 2007 Mista Montana and his new co-host, Menace were making more noise than any other UK radio show, with mainstream magazine coverage and internet site inclusions.
During the months that followed Mista Montana and Menace broke new ground on a weekly basis, delivering radio shows that not only transmitted live but were then subsequently podcasted, ensuring that their efforts could be heard for eternity. The radio show was now making hip hop history, with such feats as being the first radio show in the world to premiere Rakim’s comeback album and the only radio show to pull Canibus out of a three-year press denial to conduct a sprawling hour long feature. In addition to consistently featuring massive names in hip hop as live guests each week and delivering ‘fresh that week’ music, The Friday Night Live Show began to offer listeners a truly unique insight into the minds of the artists they loved. Interviews became deep, unpredictable and sometimes even strange, but it was this unique blend of ‘as it happens’ unpolished yet glistening radio that captivated listeners from every major country of the world.
Montana,and his new-found cohort, Menace, had utilized every resource available to them and without a budget, created a radio show which some have described as ‘the best hip hop show anywhere in the world’, many even comparing it the radio shows of the originators that had inspired Mista Montana’s passion for radio in the first place. Glowing at such statements and continuing to nurture the radio show, Mista Montana and Menace are now gathering 1000s of new listeners each day from all around the world, reaching number 1 in the global hip hop/rap podcast charts for their podcast.
The Friday Night Live Show - the future
Montana now has the respect he craved from both the hip hop community and the artists themselves, his podcasted shows being listened to and downloaded by some of the most important people in hip hop, from Chuck D to Chino XL with even KRS-One tweeting about the show.
Mista Montana will never stop. And although the future holds nothng but confrontation, he and his partner in crime, Menace, are preparing to take their brainchild to a new, scary height.
Contact Mista Montana:
E Mail - conspiracyworldwide@gmail.com
BBM Pin - 22192BE3
