On Monday, comedian and Daily Show commentator Roy Wood Jr. shared a Twitter thread that's a heartwarming testament to how music can transcend the often arbitrary boxes of genre that people put it in. He began: "Today is the 15 year anniversary of the time myself and another radio DJ accidentally played ‘Candy’ by [Memphis rappers] 8Ball & MJG on a gospel station for 4 hours straight, no commercials….on a Sunday morning."
What led to the song being played for 1/6 of a day is, actually, quite understandable: In Wood Jr.'s account, he distracted a worn-out disc jockey known as Young Dilleon who was adding songs to the 6 a.m. gospel program's playlist. All the radio station's music – hip-hop, rock, gospel, everything – was stored in the same server, leading to the fatal mix-up: instead of adding a song by Louise 'Candy' Davis, a true blue gospel artist, the DJ mistakenly added "Candy" by 8Ball & MJG.
Both DJs then left the room without checking the screen or listening in to what the radio station was playing. Unbeknownst to them, the computer had crashed, and the radio's system began to loop "Candy," the last song that was played.
Four hours later they got the station back to regularly scheduled programming, and the two DJs didn't tell anyone – their bosses never found out about the looping. However, there was an unexpected side effect: "For the next week old black people were calling the gospel station requesting 'that song about candy'". The outpouring of new listeners was so significant, it made 8Ball & MJG's song "one of the top 5 requested gospel songs in the city of Birmingham" in August 2003.
Read the full Twitter thread below.
Thumbnail photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images