Friday mornings have a way of setting the tone for the whole weekend, and this past Friday on 1st Sky Omaha in the Morning, hosts Paul B. and Buddy the God made sure the energy was exactly right. Before the first segment even got underway, Paul B. made a declaration: “There’s a lot of chatter going on on Friends of First Sky Omaha. There’s a lot of back and forth, friends breaking up, all kinds of stuff happening over politics — and that just is like, okay, well, we have to make a decision. It’s going to be Love Supreme Friday today.” And with that, the show was off and running.
The morning after a primary election is always a moment for reflection, and the hosts didn’t shy away from it. Paul B. shared a post from viewer Raquel Henderson that stopped more than a few people in their tracks: “Only 339,000 out of more than 1.2 million registered voters in Nebraska showed up yesterday. Posting on Facebook is not enough. Awareness without action changes nothing.” The numbers sparked a lively and thoughtful chat. Viewer Kimber Snipes offered some important context, writing, “I’ve been having conversations with people between the ages of 20 and 35. What I hear the most is most of them don’t really know what to do and know nothing about the candidates. I don’t think we should be slamming people for not voting when the system is really what has caused this. I think we need to have more education and deep dive discussions.” Buddy the God brought it back to the bigger picture: “We got to do both. We got to do both in the now. We have to build our own ecosystems and continue to do the things that we’re about to talk about. But in the long run, we do got to figure this out as a nation.”
And building ecosystems is exactly what the show’s main guest, Dana Murray, is doing — one young musician at a time. Murray is the founder and executive director of the North Omaha Music Academy (NMA), formerly known as Love’s Jazz, situated right on the North 24th Street corridor at 24th and Lake. A South Omaha native who spent eleven years in New York City before coming home, Murray has poured that experience into creating something the neighborhood — and the whole city — has been waiting for.
Paul B. introduced Murray with what he calls the “secondary matrix” concept — the idea that the surface lesson is never the only lesson. “In Dana Murray’s case, he teaches kids music — on the surface that’s what it is. They’re learning bass, piano, music theory. But we all know that when you learn music, your brain synapsis starts firing in different ways,” Paul B. explained. “The secondary matrix for him is to create critical thinkers.” Murray himself put it plainly: “We’re not only raising musicians, but more importantly we’re raising more critical thinking human beings, because all these young kids are not going to become musicians by choice. Some will become doctors, some will become lawyers, some will become business owners. Whatever they choose to do, they’re going to be better because they were aligned with artistry.”
The conversation quickly expanded beyond the classroom walls and into the broader vision for what North 24th Street — affectionately called “the Deuce” — could and should become. Murray didn’t mince words about the gap between the corridor’s historic significance and its current momentum. “Really, the area that has the most history and the one that can claim ‘we are a cultural and arts district’ for real is the North 24th Street corridor,” he said. “And we’ve been so far removed from that — not even what the rest of Omaha views North 24th Street as. I’m more talking to the people that are there, who are so far removed from what that was, that it is hard to build momentum from within when a lot of the community can’t relate to the power of what was.”
For Murray, the solution is part infrastructure, part mindset. He drew a direct comparison to Omaha Performing Arts downtown, which generates $40 to $50 million in economic activity annually, and made the case that NMA could serve that same catalytic function for North Omaha. “What we have to sell in most black communities is our culture,” he said with conviction. “Because if we don’t monetize it — which 99% of the time we don’t — the rest of the country monetizes our culture for us. The sooner we understand that our culture is equity, that our brilliance and our artistic genius is equity, the better off we’re going to be.” The vision includes a full NMA campus, with a first-phase capital campaign of $20 million already on the horizon.
When asked about his place as a South Omaha native working in North Omaha, Murray was characteristically direct. “If you’re black and you’re in Omaha, especially in the 70s and early 80s, everyone had a shared relationship with North Omaha. That was the Mecca for us.” He spoke candidly about missed opportunities, including the potential of events like Native Omaha Days to showcase culture to the broader city. “People told me that was going to be very, very hard,” he said of his effort to make NMA a destination for all of Omaha. “And people don’t have any problem coming from wherever they are in Omaha or Iowa to come down to North 24th Street to hear jazz music.”
The chat was buzzing throughout. Viewer Pops added a beautiful personal note: “Yes, Paul. Artists like Fats Domino used to stay at your grandfather’s home when he came to town to perform. So yes, more infrastructure for the artist around the Deuce corridor would be a godsend.” And viewer Senator KML sent a direct message to Murray: “Thank you, Uncle Dana. You’re changing lives in big ways. We are the students.”
The show also paused to celebrate a pure moment of joy — viewer Aeros 402 (Mary Sanchez) shared that her daughter had just given birth to her second granddaughter, writing simply, “They are both new and good. I feel blessed.” It was the kind of reminder that keeps Love Supreme Fridays feeling exactly like what they are.
Paul B. closed out the conversation with the line that may well define the show’s entire mission: “I’ve always called it the most important black corner in Nebraska — and we got to serve it. We have to be of service to it.” That spirit — of showing up, building up, and lifting up — ran through every minute of Friday’s episode.
If you missed it, make plans to catch 1st Sky Omaha in the Morning next week. The conversation is always worth showing up for.
