Pay 2 Play

"For me it was like, 'Well, it's not supposed to cost. That's illegal,'" Roberts says. "You can't play music [in return] for money."

Answering those questions was embarrassing for Roberts, so he decided to handle fundraising differently.

"You can definitely sell commercials, just like any syndicated show," Roberts says. To avoid conflicts of interest, he says, he lets the station's sales department sell ads rather than doing it himself.

But Roberts has found a way to turn his job at KPRS into additional business.

"Basically, I turned Underground Heat into a marketing company," Roberts says. He'll sponsor a mix or put on a concert and charge unknown artists to open for bigger acts, which helps him defray the cost of booking a big name. "If I can put your name on a flier and get 800 people to go to the show, I'll pay you," Roberts explains. "But if I keep your name off the flier and I can still get 800 people to go to the show, you pay me. It's a cold game. But it's what you think it's worth."

Roberts also charges fees for his knowledge of the music industry. For a price, he can put together a promotional package for an artist and help the artist shop it to labels around the country.

He used to share his knowledge for free, but after a while, he started to see people he'd mentored paying others for access to their connections. "At least my connections are real," he says.

Keejuan Carter, 28, opens the door to his east-side apartment wearing a white sleeveless shirt and sweatpants. Then he settles back down on his couch. A game show is blaring on TV.

Carter is the manager of Van Brunt Entertainment, a collective of rappers who grew up together near Van Brunt and 27th Street. The artists have each put out solo albums, but they promote one another together. They won't speak to journalists individually, preferring that all media contact go through Carter.

Carter explains that the group began with a rapper called D-Loc da Chop, who recorded a song with Tech N9ne (one of Kansas City's few successful hip-hop exports) when D-Loc was only 17. D-Loc's friend, a rapper who now goes by Cash Image, told him to get serious about the music.

"He [Cash Image] was like, 'We gonna call [producer] Don Juan. We gonna get you about 10 beats, gonna get a suite, bring up a boom box. We gonna write, and we gonna buy some studio time,'" Carter explains. "D-Loc da Chop started Van Brunt Entertainment there."

Another rapper, Slopp da Gambla, played a song for D-Loc, and D-Loc declared Slopp his rapping partner on the spot, Carter says. D-Loc, Slopp and Cash Image got busy recording. They also got their promotional materials together, splashing the Van Brunt Entertainment logo across T-shirts that they wore in clubs and on the street.

Carter made sure that the Van Brunt artists took care of licensing and registering their music with organizations such as ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) and BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.), which protect artists' music while making sure they get royalties for each spin.

This year, Cash Image came out with a hit song, "In My Chevy," which was heavily requested on Underground Heat. Carter and his crew found a way to get "In My Chevy" on a ring tone that their fans could download.

Van Brunt Entertainment has been able to make pay-for-play work for them.

"We paid our dues, and it eventually works — if you got talent. I've seen with my own eyes: You pay $200, $300 for a 15-minute set, that's four songs. If you got a table set up in the back with merch, it's a given. Eight hundred people are falling in love with you after four songs, and you can make that $200 back in CD sales."

But even they fell for a recent contest that wasn't what it seemed.

On Wednesday, September 5, one of the regular contributors to a forum at hiphopkc.com posted this message: "I was in Westport tonight and some guys were handing out fliers outside the Hurricane. They gave me a flier and said they were promoters for the Source and that the Source is having a contest at the Emerald House on Main on Friday night where they'll pick one singer/rapper from KC (who wants to pay $75 to enter the contest) to advance to another contest in New York where the winner will be the Source's next Unsigned Hype. Regular admission is a whopping twenty bucks!!!"

During the days of Tupac and Biggie, hip-hoppers pored over the glossy pages of The Source each month. But in recent years, the magazine's influence has waned. When that Friday night rolled around, the crowd at the Emerald House was lackluster, but local musicians stepped up to compete. Cash Image paid the $75 to enter, and his infectious hooks won over the judges.

As Carter understands it, the prize for winning was that Cash Image would be flown to New York City to compete in the next round of the contest. But when the November date grew near, Cash Image passed on the opportunity.