Artist of the Week:

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Greg "Hot Boy" Lemons

Whenever I have a shift at the radio station, I always see "Hot Boy" jamming out to his music. It's always amusing just watching him spin and mix, catching the beat as the next song goes on. You'll always find him with his Beats headphones on swaying to the rhythm as he plays Today's Hottest Jamz.

At a young age, Greg "Hot Boy" Lemons never expected to go into radio, "I found myself writing down in a spiral notebook a whole bunch of ideas...I didn't plan on going into radio, radio was never my focus, it was never my goal" he says on a recent interview. But those ideas that he had have become a reality. Through his ongoing talents and skills he has not only become a well-respected DJ but also a well-known on-air personality for the local hip-hop radio station,  Power 106.9 here in Omaha, NE.

I had the chance to interview "Hot Boy" and learn more about his experiences and where he got his DJ name. Check it out.

"I didn’t know that on the inside of me I was really a radio-head". -Greg "Hot Boy" Lemons 

(In studio with Hot Boy)

Me: How long have you been a DJ and an on-air personality for?
Hot Boy: I've been in radio for 10 years and I've been an on-air personality for 8 years.

Me: Did you imagine yourself being an on-air personnel growing up?
Hot Boy: Well, when I was younger, I found myself writing down in a spiral notebook a whole bunch of ideas and I would just write them down because I thought they were funny. I would talk to my friends about them and I would talk to my family about them, not knowing that at the time, just graduated from high school that what I was doing was writing show prep. It wasn’t until years later, I went off to college and came back and I started. I was a DJ in the clubs and I would intern at a radio station and they would use my ideas from that spiral notebook and use them on air. And they really really worked. And it wasn’t until then to where I realized that I was onto something and I had been onto something before I went off to college. But before that, nah I didn’t think I was going to be in radio.

Me: What do you find interesting about radio?
Hot Boy: The most interesting part about radio is the amount of research that goes into it. Most people don’t know that there’s so much more to what comes out of your speakers than the things that you hear. The things that you hear are strategically placed, are strategically done, everything from when the commercials play, the exact time they play, to how many times you hear a particular song, to why you don’t hear certain songs on certain days of the week. It’s very strategic and it’s very very research driven. I was a biology major so I loved research and I didn’t know that radio has so much research in it. It’s a 24 hour a day 7 days a week research field platform.

Me: So what influenced you in being on air?
Hot Boy: The biggest influence for me was people telling me that I shouldn’t  do it, that I’m not going to make it in it, that it’s not a real career, it’s not a real job, it’s just a fad that I'm going through and pretty soon that I’m going to grow out of it. And those people encourage me the most.

Me: I know back in LA there’s a Power 106 and I know Big Boy does the on air personality, What’s the difference between Power 106 here in Omaha? Is there a difference between the two?
Hot Boy: There’s a huge difference, we just happen to be two radio stations with the same, well with similar frequencies. The Power 106 in LA is 105.9 and we’re 106.9 here. Since Power 106 is one of the largest rhythm stations in the country, it's a very, it's a very known brand. It’s a known brand and so for us to be able to use a brand that’s already known it builds some familiarity when people hear the name. When we first launched Power 1069 here in Omaha, there was no connection to the Power 106 in LA. We didn’t run Big Boy, we didn't utilize any of their research tools, none of the things that they've done we did. We were two totally different entities and the only thing we shared in common was a name. The guys that ran the radio station here had different ideas and different ideals than the guys in LA. And we just had a similar name. We just happen to get Big Boy’s neighborhood who was on Power 106 in LA cause he had a syndicated morning show and out of all the morning shows we sampled, he was the best fit for the radio station and the identity that we were trying to create, here in Nebraska. It wasn’t because he was on Power 106, it’s because his personality fit where the direction of the radio station was going here. Now I know that entire team out there and they’re a very very very research driven, brilliant team. But there’s a lot of differences. There’s more things that’s different about us than there’s similar about us. One of the biggest things that we really have in common is our name and our morning show. Outside of that, you know, we’re our own entity and our own brands.

Me: Where did you get your nickname ("Hot Boy") from?
Hot Boy: This is going to be interesting! I went to college in Northern Louisiana and I used to run with a whole lot of guys from New Orleans. In New Orleans, the city is broken down into the different police codes which are called wards. And each ward pretty much had a title and if you listen to a lot of music out in New Orleans it would show. Like you had the 3^rd ward soldiers out back in the late 90’s, the early 2000’s, No Limit made them very very popular, uh with Master P and all of those guys. The group of guys and gals I ran with was called the Hot Boys and the Hot Girls. And so in college, I was the Nebraska Hot Boy, cause I wasn’t from New Orleans but I ran with those guys and so I was the Nebraska Hot Boy. So when I moved back to Nebraska it made no sense to be the Nebraska Hot Boy in Nebraska, so just dropped Nebraska, and Hot Boy just stuck with me.

Me: What advice would you give someone who is interested in being an on air personality, working in radio or even being a DJ?.
Hot Boy: My advice would be don’t do it for the wrong reasons, don’t do it for popularity, don’t do it for money, don’t do it for credibility, don’t do it for self-esteem, do it because it’s your heart and it’s your passion. Do it because if you would never get paid, would you still do it. It could be 7 days a week and the gratitude that you have to get out of it has to be from self, it has to be self gratifying you have to be able to walk out of these doors at 2o’clock in the morning, look back at yourself and say I just did a damn good job. That’s the heart that you gotta have going into radio, that’s the mindset you gotta have going into radio.

Me: (Random Q) If you were to travel around the world, where would you wanna go and why?
Hot Boy: If it’s 2014, I wanna go to Brazil and go to the world cup cause I love Brazil and I love soccer. So to have the World Cup in the soccer mecca of the world, I gotta be there for that. And maybe have a Margarita!!!

A big shout out to Hot Boy for letting me interview him! I hope you enjoyed this good read!

Follow Hot Boy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hotboyradio

On the Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hotboystweet

From LA, With Luv
Fati <3