New York City’s pirates of the airwaves

David Goren explores the world of pirate radio in New York City past and present through the Brooklyn Pirate Radio Sound Map project and conversation with DJ Cintronics, founder of the legendary hip hop pirate station WBAD. Today well over 100 unlicensed radio stations break the law to bring music and news from home to 1^st and 2^nd generation immigrant neighborhoods, along with practical guidance and spiritual comfort for survival in a new land.

You can’t see them, but the skies above New York City hold a tangle of transgressive, culture-bearing radio signals. Clandestine rooftop transmitters send them pulsing imperceptibly across the five boroughs, their sounds spilling from simple FM radios in homes and businesses throughout tight-knit immigrant enclaves. These stations, often called pirates, operate without a license in communities that struggle to access the legal airwaves due to high costs and corporate control of the media. The operators of stations like Irie Storm Radio, La Voix du Peuple, Kol Hashalom and Radio Gospel Train risk fines, confiscation of equipment and the threat of arrest to keep their signals flowing to audiences that have strong cultural and historic connections to radio listening. The programs bring music and news from home along with practical guidance and spiritual comfort for survival in a new land.