Kool DJ Red Alert, the Harlem DJ whose radio shows carried hip-hop across New York for four decades, is leaving the air. His last broadcast is a four-hour set on WBLS 107.5 on Monday, Nov. 30.
He announced it Nov. 2 in an Instagram video. “Today, I stand before you to announce that I’m saying farewell to radio,” said Red Alert, whose legal name is Frederick Crute. “It has been an honor,” he said of sharing the airwaves with the community.
The numbers are long. He started on radio in 1983 at 98.7 Kiss FM, moved to Hot 97 for most of the 1990s and has been at WBLS in recent years. This year marks 50 years as a working DJ. Reports on his retirement credit him with introducing listeners to A Tribe Called Quest and Queen Latifah, and he is widely counted among the founding figures of hip-hop.
That history matters beyond nostalgia. In the 1980s, hip-hop had few places on mainstream radio, and a DJ with a mix show was often the only way a Black artist from the Bronx or Queens reached a listener at all. Red Alert was one of the people who opened that door, and he did it from stations that Black New Yorkers actually listened to.
He is not disappearing. Red Alert says he will keep DJing special events and community celebrations, and that his passion for music and entertainment remains strong. In 2024, Harlem unveiled an interactive sculpture in his honor at Montefiore Square, part of the Harlem Sculpture Gardens series.
The send-off starts earlier. The Red Alert Experience Gala is Tuesday, Nov. 24, at Sony Hall in Manhattan, hosted by producer Teddy Riley and WBLS’s Bugsy. DJ Jazzy Jeff, Kid Capri, DJ Spinna and Ringo Smith are set to perform. Tickets are $50 general admission and $150 VIP.
Radio rarely says thank you to the people who built its audience. A man who gave New York its hip-hop education for 43 years deserves more than a farewell set, and the stations that profited from his ear should say so out loud. The gala is Nov. 24. The last broadcast is Nov. 30.
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