Mainstream urban is a radio station format with a particular playlist composition that targets younger listeners than urban contemporary, tending to have a more hip-hop-heavy playlist that differs from the R&B-heavy urban contemporary radio stations. The term mainstream urban was coined in the mid-1990s when radio stations began focusing on different styles of current hip-hop and R&B.
The format features various styles of hip-hop and R&B from different regions of the country that are popular at the moment. However, the format does feature numerous classic hip-hop and R&B songs from the late '80s and '90s.
Famous quotes containing the words mainstream and/or urban:
“At times it seems that the media have become the mainstream culture in children’s lives. Parents have become the alternative. Americans once expected parents to raise their children in accordance with the dominant cultural messages. Today they are expected to raise their children in opposition to it.”
—Ellen Goodman (20th century)
“Commercial jazz, soap opera, pulp fiction, comic strips, the movies set the images, mannerisms, standards, and aims of the urban masses. In one way or another, everyone is equal before these cultural machines; like technology itself, the mass media are nearly universal in their incidence and appeal. They are a kind of common denominator, a kind of scheme for pre-scheduled, mass emotions.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–62)