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Power 99 will begin broadcasting ‘The Breakfast Club’ radio show

The highly influential show, hosted by Charlemagne Tha God, airs weekdays from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m.

Radio host and podcaster Charlamagne tha God speaks from "The Breakfast Club" studio in New York in September.
Radio host and podcaster Charlamagne tha God speaks from "The Breakfast Club" studio in New York in September.Read moreEmma Rose Milligan, for USA TODA
    by Nate File
    Published 

Power 99, Philadelphia’s popular hip-hop and R&B radio station, will begin broadcasting The Breakfast Club next week, the station announced.

Starting Monday, Philadelphia listeners can hear the Radio Hall of Fame show from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. It will replace the iHeartMedia station’s Rise + Grind Morning Show.

“The Breakfast Club has remained a cultural touchstone for over a decade, connecting millions of listeners with the biggest names in music, entertainment, and politics,” Thea Mitchem, executive vice president of programming for iHeartMedia, said in a statement.

The Breakfast Club, which is hosted by Charlamagne Tha God, DJ Envy, and Jess Hilarious, reaches 6.6 million listeners on the radio and 7 million podcast downloads per month, according to iHeart. Its discussions of pop culture and politics, as well as high-profile celebrity interviews, have earned it serious cultural influence.

At the helm of the show is Charlamagne Tha God, who is known as a habitual line-stepper for his controversial and occasionally offensive comments on the air and elsewhere. On numerous occasions, the show’s live interviews have soured as subjects took offense to provocative things Charlamagne or his cohosts have said. A sexual assault case from 2001 against him was dismissed last year.

The show’s other controversial moments since its founding in 2010 are nearly too long to name. Recently, the hosts defended Snoop Dogg’s comments that LGBTQ characters in children’s movies “scared” him, and in 2017, its hosts laughed at a rapper’s transphobic remarks. While running for president in 2020, Joe Biden joked with Charlamagne during an interview, “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black,” and later apologized for it.

But Charlamagne has also been praised for using his platform to benefit the Black community, like by encouraging his audience to vote and take their mental health seriously, pushing elected officials to deliver, and most recently, calling President Donald Trump a “fascist.”

Charlamagne and his cohosts seem to thrive under the heat of public opinion, branding themselves as “the world’s most dangerous morning show.”