Music industry veteran Paul Porter has released the book “Blackout,” an explosive look at the corruption running rampant in the music industry. “Blackout” details Porter’s experiences in the music industry, from his first stint in radio in 1976 – when the busing riots in Boston sent him scrambling into WRBB at Northeastern University – to his tenure at BET and some of the nation’s top-rated radio stations. 

“Blackout” is a chronicle of my successes and failures, my dreams and disappointments in the music business,” Porter said. “It’s filled with the secrets the music industry desperately tries to keep, the stories no one tells. I wanted to expose the truth about the industry I love.”

“Blackout” takes readers on a ride through Porter’s whirlwind of media jobs, working for and with some of the music industry’s most colorful, well-known and scandalous players. It explores the insidious role of payola, an illegal practice that is firmly embedded in the music industry, deep in the grooves like tracks on a vinyl record. And it offers an inside account of how corporations killed Black radio and erased Black identity from mainstream Black music — and why Porter chose to fight back.