They’re calling it “the digital industry's first social radio website targeted towards African-Americans.” Interactive One, a division of Radio One, is offering a music discovery (from Songza’s 14.5 million song library) and social networking site (integrated with Facebook). With radio companies finding new ways to compete with online music services like Pandora, Google Music and Spotify, it only made sense to gear one specifically to the African American audience. Here’s my First Listen to BlackPlanetRadio.com.

With a very easy-to-navigate homepage, I find BlackPlanetRadio.com more user friendly than some of the other streaming music services I’ve tried in recent months. There are initially six different ways to enter and “Discover” music – through DJ Spotlight, Live Radio, Moods, Activites, Decades and Genres.

DJ Spotlight includes a list of celebrity and local radio/online personalities, with their own take on music and themes. Some of the celebrity DJs include Vickie Winans (with a gospel mix of course); recording artist and reality TV star Kandi Burruss who brings us her “favorite bedroom songs,” while Keith Sweat focuses on his favorite love songs.

From the local DJ and online personality lineup, BPR utilizes the multiple folks they have in house at Interactive One who have years of experience in radio or as DJs. Darnella Dunham (friend of Urban First) of Radio One’s Urban Daily, shares several playlists including “Divorce Party Playlist” which includes the best break up songs of all time. Jerry L. Barrow, also of the Urban Daily, created “Samplicious – exploring the DNA of your favorite hip-hop songs.” Even the folks at Radio One’s News One service have a hand at programming music lists, such as “The top 10 Civil Rights Protest Songs” contributed by lead editor of NewsOne.com, Claudio E. Cabrera.

Here is a listen to “The Top 10 Civil Rights Protest Songs:”

James Weldon Johnson - “Lift Every Voice and Sing”
Sam Cooke - “A Change Is Gonna Come”
Bob Marley & the Wailers – Go Tell It On the Mountain
John Coltrane – “Alabama (Live)”
Marvin Gaye – “What’s Going On”
Pete Seeger – “We Shall Overcome”
The Impressions – “People Get Ready”
Bob Dylan - “The Times They Are A Changing”
Mavis Staples – “We Shall Not Be Moved”
Billie Holliday – “Strange Fruit”

You can also choose to listen to “Live Radio,” which includes streaming of Radio One stations broken down by market and genres (including talk), as well as a listing of the company’s syndicated morning shows: Rickey Smiley, Russ Parr and Yolanda Adams.

The next category of song lists is called Moods. Lists are broken down into descriptive titles such as “Sexual” which included a playlist called “Freaky Nasty” and described as “really nasty rap and R&B.” Of course the songs are unedited. In fact, I was going to feature a First Listen to this channel – but after four songs, I was too embarrassed to include the titles.

Instead, here’s a First Listen to the Moods channel “Cocky,” with the playlist “Classic Summer Rap:”

Lupe Fiasco – “Kick, Push”
Akrobatik – “Soul Glo”
Dead Prez – “Happiness”
Common – “The Light”
Warren G – “Regulate”
Bizzy Bone – “Sit Back Relax”
Pete Rock – “Grown Man Sport”
Talib Kweli – “Never Been In Love”
AZ – “Sugar Hill”

The other Moods were: Energetic, Happy, Motivational, Sweet, Classy, Celebratory, and Funky. Each mood has multiple playlists to choose from.

The other categories that users can choose from include Activities (with includes playlists for things such as Barbequing, City Cruising, Road Trip, Cocktail Party, Stripping and even Getting High). The Decades category is broken into “2000s,” “90s rap and R&B,” “80s Party,” and “60s R&B.”

The last category of playlists, Genres, has a surprisingly wide range of choices – including several that are rarely heard on today’s terrestrial radio: Dubstep, Jamaican and Jazz. The Jamaican channel has no less than seven playlists, while the jazz channel features six, including “Essential Jazz” (Ella Fitzgerald to Cab Calloway), “The Smoothest Of Smooth Jazz” (Najee to Kenny G), and “Miles Davis & Friends” (Miles with McCoy Tyner, Charlie Mingus, etc). Interestingly, on Tuesday, just after the launch of the site, it was the “Essential Jazz” playlist that appeared to have the most listeners tuning in.

BlackPlanetradio.com also makes a point to present a wide variety of musical genres and choices for users. While the site is presented as a site for African-Americans, it does not limit itself musically in any way. And it will obviously appeal to anyone who lives the “urban” lifestyle. In fact, several playlists feature artists that may not be traditionally considered for the African American listener and would rarely - if ever- be heard on terrestrial urban radio, including Aerosmith and Neon Trees.

Overall the site has some great tools - Listeners can share on Facebook and Twitter as well as comment on any and all the lists. They can also vote thumbs up or thumbs down on any song in a list, as well as pause a song at any time. Most importantly, you can fast forward through any song you want to skip on a list. The company explains the service has other key tools:

“BlackPlanet Radio keeps a record of what playlists have been listened to in the past and saves favorite playlists to each account holder's personal and sharable music collection. Collections can be shared with friends and organized by era, activity, mood, genre or any other category. Users who log in to BlackPlanet Radio with their Facebook account can organize their favorite radio stations and playlists all in one place and can see what their friends are listening to in real-time.”

In terms of musical choices, BlackPlanetRadio.com appears to cover everything that someone in the lifestyle would want to hear. From Gospel to jazz, to R&B and Hip-Hop, as well as everything in between and related – even vaguely related! Users can contribute their own playlists to share with friends, which of course, helps to “socially” spread the word about the service.

The biggest pitfall about the site? The log-in procedure through Facebook, which like several other music sharing experience sites, demands quite a bit (and for me – too much) access to one’s personal information. Right now, the site is in what it calls “private beta” testing – but interested parties can request an invite to join here.