There have been talks about having 106 & Park revived for BET, and now, Jermaine Dupri is taking a walk down memory lane. Last year, Bow Wow expressed interest in having an executive position at BET. During that time, there were also speculations that he wanted to revive 106 & Park for this generation of R&B and Hip Hop listeners, but later, he revealed that the BET powers that be weren’t interested in the concept.
While on The Goats And Underdogs podcast this week, Dupri gave insight into how the series began. “106 & Park was created by me. I created the show for Bow Wow,” Dupri revealed.
Read More: Bow Wow Rejects Revival Of “106 & Park”: “BET Just Don’t Get It”
“I was watching MTV and MTV had TRL. And they was catering to N’Sync, they was catering to the Backstreet Boys,” he also stated. “Anything white that was coming out that was Pop, they was allowing these kids to scream and holler. I’m like, ‘Yo, we don’t have nothin’ for Black people. Like, where’s the Black kids that love music. Why don’t they have a show like this?’”
“So, I called Stephen Hill and I said, ‘Yo, I got [an] artist, we need to make a show just like TRL. He said, ‘What’s the artist?’ And I said, ‘His name is Bow Wow.’ Of course, he was like, I don’t know. Everybody challenges what I’m saying.”
Read More: AJ Calloway Remembers 106 & Park On Its 22nd Anniversary
“Mind you, they wasn’t gon’ put Bow Wow on TRL like that because he was also a rapper. He was a Black, little young boy rapping. But he also was 12 years old. Nobody on TV was 12 years old anywhere creating this type of pandemonium.”
Dupri returned to Hill to further emphasize the need for a BET version of what TRL was accomplishing. From 2000 to 2005, 106 & Park‘s original hosts were A. J. Calloway and Marie “Free” Wright. In 2006, Rocsi Diaz and Terrence J took over until their tenure ended in 2012.
Bow Wow would also famously host the series in 2012 alongside Jordan Johnson, Kimberly Walker, and Mykel Gray. After straightening out who would remain as hosts, Bow was joined by Angela Simmons.
Check out highlights from 106 & Park‘s reign below.