Peter Rosenberg’s bedroom doesn’t seem like a logical place for a radio rap battle.
The Bethesda native and university alumnus shares a house in Silver Spring with a friend, a dog and a cat, only seconds from his old Hebrew school. His attic bedroom consists of a mattress on the floor, a small recording studio, a signed folding chair from the WWE and piles upon piles of hip-hop records.
Then again, Jimmy Phillips and Cole Policy do not seem like typical freestylers. Phillips is a junior criminology and criminal justice major and Policy, a graduate student, studies library science and works a day job at the National Archives.
But it’s here in the attic where they duke it out on the airwaves during Rosenberg’s “Sunday Night Mic Fight,” just one segment of the show’s Sunday broadcast. Phillips goes by “Wheat Thyn” here and Policy, an established local artist with a few albums, goes by “Seez Mics.”
As if his guests and studio don’t do enough to defy expectations, Rosenberg goes the extra mile to mix it up tonight, throwing in a track from the Dixie Chicks among the mostly classic hip-hop music that typically permeates his talk show.
After the freestyle battle (Seez Mics wins unanimously with a handful of AOL Instant Messenger votes, but Wheat Thyn gets props for major improvements), Rosenberg talks for hours about anything that comes to mind, from local hip-hop to professional wrestling to Slurpees, all while monitoring the show’s online audience.
A week ago, Rosenberg’s life looked vastly different. Instead of broadcasting via the Internet to a following of loyal fans, he and his co-host Daryl Francis, another Maryland alum, had a comfortable job at popular Washington station FREE-FM, broadcasting at first on weekday mornings, then on weekends. The Peter Rosenberg Show reached thousands in the Washington area. Rosenberg and Francis were also hopeful about their potentially career-defining interview for a job at WFNY, formerly Howard Stern’s home station KROCK.
Now, after being fired from WJFK under circumstances many are calling unfair, and with still no word from WFNY, Rosenberg and Francis have some serious work to do. But they’re not sitting around crying – they’ve taken advantage of podcasts’ popularity and brought their listeners a regular show they can tune into on the website www.rosenbergradio.com. And they’re aggressively looking to the future.
“My goal, truth be told, is to be able to do it all,” Rosenberg says, listing becoming a professional podcaster and hosting a show on VH1 or HBO among his career goals.
“I’m actually really excited about the prospect of really taking this hardcore to the streets,” he says. “And when I say the streets, I really mean the Internet … There’s never been a show like this before.”
What it comes down to, Rosenberg says, is that young people these days can’t be pigeonholed. Kids from all different demographics are interested in a wide array of topics, from stupid humor to serious discussions about this society. What our generation isn’t interested in, he says, is the cheesy, superficial fluff pervading almost all mainstream media.
“No one you meet loves Britney Spears and Paris Hilton,” he says. “So how does it dominate the culture?”
The duo also manages to stay largely nonchalant, which is impressive considering the array of guests they’ve had – 50 Cent, Howard Dean, The Office’s Ricky Gervais and Rosenberg’s favorite wrestler, Bret Hart.
“Daryl and I are actually authentically cool. We’re usually cooler than our guests,” Rosenberg says semi-seriously. “I may not have as much money or anything, and my chain’s fake, but we’re actually cool and smart. We have something to say.”
Rosenberg’s days of being cooler than everyone else may have started here at the university, where he hosted the Friday night hip-hop show “From Dusk Til Dawn” for seven years. He concedes, however, that Francis, a finance major from Brooklyn and president of the Black Student Union, “was basically the most popular kid at Maryland. … He knew everybody.”
During his time at the university, Rosenberg says he tried to keep with the classic hip-hop foundation.
“I was around WMUC forever, and so we continue that vibe,” he says. “I knew we were doing a really special show back then.”
Rosenberg says he was good friends with David Ellis, the senior hip-hop enthusiast who was killed last year when his Knox Box apartment caught on fire. Rosenberg says he passed his Friday night slot to Ellis when he left the station.
“Until Dave passed away … there was 15 years of hip-hop on Friday nights,” he says.
Now, Rosenberg says, WMUC “feels so dead,” and the university could do a lot to remedy the situation if it wanted.
“I want WMUC to actually get real advisers,” he says. “I think the fact that it’s so student-run is to its detriment … Ideally, Maryland would stop paying so much money for all their sports stuff and buy a better station. I mean, The Beatles came to WMUC … Jay-Z, Lauryn Hill, everyone’s been to WMUC. There’s such history there and it’s wasted on this 10-watt station.”
Rosenberg says one day, if he’s old and rich, he’d love to help revitalize the station. But he and Francis also have loftier aims.
“If there’s one thing in my dream world that Daryl and I could do; it would be to somehow be a factor in bringing this generation together,” Rosenberg says.
The important thing is finding your passion, Rosenberg says, as he has in radio. Even after this stressful week of ups and downs, he says he still loves the job.
“Even when it’s talking about getting fired, it’s still fun,” he says. “We’re living. … I feel alive, constantly; I never feel bored. It always feels like an adventure.”
Contact reporter Rebecca Wise at wisedbk@gmail.com.
