In our blog about chef musical inspiration, we tell you the most relevant data behind our music and how it identifies us. Therefore, now we bring you information about our Chef Burger Radio from the point of view of Javier Rodríguez, director of Cámara FM, the station of the Chamber of Commerce of Medellín for Antioquia.
Javier has experience in radio since 1997, the year in which he was directing the first electronic music program in the city of Medellín. Also, while studying Social Communication at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, he had his first job with Cámara FM between 1984 and 1990. When he finished his studies, he ran a station called Mundo Diners, which broadcast the classics of Country and Alternative Rock, and returned to Cámara FM in 2002 to continue the legacy of the previous radio to continue evolving.
Find out what it tells us about music with meaning and about Chef Burger.
What is the main focus of FM Camera?
We search and continue to generate a different type of radio, a radio with a particular type of sound aesthetic and unique ways of presenting music, giving it context, researching, creating original texts, avoiding copy-paste.
It is a very professional radio that is managed with commercial and economic criteria that are very different from those of traditional or cultural radio. We are in the middle of these two ways of doing radio that we know in our country. In addition, what interests us is promoting entrepreneurs, people who are generating work, who are doing business.
We have maintained ourselves and have achieved a fairly important position in strata 4, 5 and 6; Although we go far beyond the strata, we are focused on people with intellectual concerns, with people who want to hear different things, people who want to open up their cultural and sound panorama.
In addition, we are a station sponsored by the same Medellín businessmen, which is a business that we have been doing practically since the pandemic and that is how we serve clients free of charge. That is a novelty, a business advantage as Chef.
How is the relationship with Chef Burger?
We created, at Cámara FM, a Chef Burger space dedicated solely and exclusively to blues, soul and funk from the idea of giving food a certain identity, a sound identity. The program is broadcast on 95.9 from Monday to Friday between 5 and 6 in the afternoon.
The construction of said space is daily because we are constantly getting music, adding new songs and new artists, which contributes to enriching this space much more.
This is so that it is not just repetition or turning the same thing around, but so that, beyond issuing songs, we give a historical context of them, we tell the biographies of some of their musicians, we talk about their importance in the development of genres and how all these types of sounds have impacted throughout history.
Regarding the economic issue, this union is advantageous for Chef as well, because the costs of this type of negotiation are very expensive. Favorably, in Cámara FM, we do not charge what this daily space really costs. Basically what we are interested in is that they start a business, that they create employment and that Chef Burger grows and we support them without commercial desires or budgets to meet.
What is the purpose of Chef Burger Radio?
The work of Chef Burger Radio and the segment in Cámara FM is born basically from knowledge; It is not that one says we are going to create this in particular for Chef Burger, but that we were going to find out in the first conversations, in the first contacts that I had with all the partners of Chef about what the musical content of the program was going to be.
However, in the first store I visited, a certain type of music was already being played. They were very clear about it: “things in Spanish are not going to sound here, pop classics are not going to sound here, reggaeton or tropical music or anything like that will not sound here.” The proposal was very clear, so we were going to have a radio program with a certain meaning on the station, in the grammar and at the time. Between 5 and 6 in the evening, in a way, is when people listen to a program while driving home.
That’s where my proposal came from to make a blues space that will accompany the afternoons of the station’s listeners. In fact, also live concerts have this same feeling, this same atmosphere that is breathed through the program. What was done from here, from its birth Chef Burger Radio and from the space with Cámara FM he determined what was going to sound later in the different venues.
What kind of music is the most prominent on this radio?
The central idea is to reach and impact who blues, soul and funk touches. The hamburger is a typically American dish and what is more American than these musical expressions.
Since that, we’ve developed a number of programs and playlists, all featuring classic blues music. We also have some new bands or artists on our schedule, including some Colombian songs.
We always look at who is doing the most outstanding blues, what is happening in this genre, also funk. We are making a permanent review of the history of these genres.
Do you think Chef’s music could be taken to other cities?
The station could be played through our streaming, there is no need to create a space in an additional station. However, the construction that was made with Chef also has many peculiarities to broadcast it in other cities.
Many people from other restaurants and from certain brands come to the station to tell me that they want something similar or equal to what we have with Chef, but I don’t think the creation experience we did with and for them is likely to be replicated or copied for other brands. First, it wouldn’t be ethical, and second, it wouldn’t be good for us or the brands.
What message do you want to convey to today’s youth?
In my capacity of being very experienced, not only on the radio, but in transferring different types of music, I would like people to experiment, for people to explore, for them not to listen to the same thing that everyone else hears, for them to go a little beyond, that sharpens the senses, that he did not stay with what the media give him.
This type of laziness into which the new generations have sunk does not let them go beyond what the mainstream media are offering them and the truth is that, below the surface, underground, there are a number of artists, there is a Lots of musicians, real musicians, musicians who play instruments, musicians who can sing, musicians who write smart songs with meaningful lyrics, who don’t get a chance or who are ignored.
How about the info? Now you know why for us our music is essential to our identity.
Stream and join our initiative to hear more music with meaning .
Made with love
Chef Burger
