Spring Break
The Daily OrangeTo his own beat
MTV News correspondent Sway Calloway inspires students with independent style
By Naresh Rammohan
Posted: 10/19/07, 12:59 AM EST Section: Feature
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Three times MTV came calling. And three times Sway Calloway said no.
His natural talent attracted the network in the first place, and his resolve is what ended up giving the current MTV News reporter the ability to do MTV his way. Seven years later, it has paid off.
Calloway, known to MTV viewers and listeners simply as "Sway," spoke about his career in the entertainment industry Thursday night in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium in Newhouse III. The event, sponsored by the Syracuse chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), gave aspiring students a pinhole view into the ever-changing media industry.
"Sway embodies a lot of ideals NABJ holds as an organization," NABJ Vice President Jessica Johnson said. "He is in our area of communications, and he has a lot of appeal to people outside of Newhouse, so he is a great speaker to have for SU's students."
Renowned for his "10-to-the-hour, every hour" news briefs on MTV, Sway broke into the industry in the early '90's thanks to his San Francisco-based radio show with fellow hip-hop entertainer King Tech, titled "The Wake Up Show." It not only featured music and interviews from established artists in the hip-hop genre, but also up-and-coming ones, too, which is how hip-hop artists such as Eminem made their debuts.
"This show was the (B.E.T. show) "106th & Park" of radio, and it informed people about the development of the hip-hop culture," Sway said. "Unlike many other shows and businesses, we didn't care what color or gender artists were. We wanted prospective artists who were not shown in the mainstream media. Good talent is good talent, and good music is good music."
In the early '90's, the East Coast dominated the hip-hop scene. Due to the show's tremendous response during this time, Sway came up with the idea of starting his own promotion company in order to bring East Coast artists to market themselves on the West Coast.
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