It was a Love Supreme Friday on 1st Sky Omaha in the Morning, and hosts Paul B. and Buddy the God brought exactly the kind of energy that name promises — grounded, purposeful, and focused on the people and places that make Omaha worth talking about. From the echoes of Nebraska’s midterm primaries to the future of North 24th Street, the conversation ranged wide but always came back to one central idea: community isn’t just something you have, it’s something you build.
Paul B. set the tone early, framing the show’s mission in terms that went well beyond a morning broadcast. “Everything that we do has a secondary meaning, a deeper meaning,” he said. “If you look at what we do right here, First Sky Omaha — on the surface we’re a couple of talking heads that talk about some news with the community. But what we’re really trying to do is build community, build some coalition, be able to build a family of people that we can regularly talk to and come to some conclusions about some things so we can get to some action.”
That spirit of action came up again when the hosts turned to the recent primaries. Buddy the God didn’t sugarcoat the challenge facing civic engagement in Omaha. “None of this really matters if everybody voted,” he said plainly. “The people don’t vote — and it’s a pretty valid point that a lot of this doesn’t matter if everybody voted.” Viewer Sean McCarthy backed that up with a sobering stat, noting in the chat that Douglas County’s average primary voter turnout was around 35 percent. Viewer Kimber Snipes added her own on-the-ground perspective: “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.” Paul B. echoed a sentiment shared from a community member’s Facebook post — “Posting on Facebook is not enough. Awareness without action changes nothing” — a line that landed with quiet weight.
The show also celebrated a pair of local wins worth cheering. Charell Shelton’s Core Science Bio Diagnostics took home a $52,000 prize, and Omaha North’s engineering program earned national recognition — two reminders that excellence is alive and well in this city.
But the heart of the morning belonged to the show’s featured guest, Dana Murray, founder of the North Omaha Music Academy (NMA), located at the storied corner of 24th and Lake. A South Omaha native who spent eleven years honing his craft in New York City before returning home to invest in the next generation, Murray brought a vision for North Omaha that was both sweeping and deeply personal.
Paul B. has long called North 24th Street “the most important Black corner in Nebraska,” and Murray didn’t disagree. But he was candid about the distance between what the corridor was and what it could be again. “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,” Murray said. “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.”
Murray used Native Omaha Days as an example of both promise and missed opportunity. “I love Native Omaha Days at its core — anything that can bring us together,” he said. “It’s a reunion, but it’s a failed opportunity to showcase our culture because none of that is trying to invite the rest of Omaha down to partake in what we have to offer.” He pointed to South Omaha’s Cinco de Mayo celebration as a model worth emulating — a cultural event that welcomes the whole city in.
At NMA, Murray is doing more than teaching scales and chord progressions. He’s building what he calls a fuller human being. “We’re not only raising musicians, but more importantly we’re raising more critical thinking human beings,” he explained. “All these young kids are not going to become musicians by choice. Some will become doctors, some lawyers, some business owners — but whatever they choose to do, they’re going to be better because they were aligned with artistry.” Viewer Pops resonated with that idea immediately, writing in: “I experienced my secondary matrix in junior high when I took algebra. I was gaining proficiency and noticed that I was suddenly able to think outside the box on several different levels. Music the same.”
And Murray’s ambitions for NMA are anything but small. He spoke of a planned capital campaign — with a first phase of $20 million — aimed at building a full NMA campus. He invoked Omaha Performing Arts, which generates $40 to $50 million in annual revenue for its district, as the kind of economic engine North Omaha deserves. “We need a vehicle like that for North Omaha, and I see NMA taking up that space,” he said. “Money is not our issue really in North Omaha. It’s transformative ideas that are going to allow us to be not only sustainable but gainfully active.”
His broader message was one the show’s hosts have been circling all season: Black culture is equity. “The sooner we understand that our culture is equity, that our brilliance, our artistic genius is equity, the better off we’re going to be,” Murray said. “Every music in America has been built off of our experience — from the hardest rock music to the jazziest jazz to the poppiest pop. You trace it all the way back to the music that was brought over here from Africa. And that’s equity.”
Music instructors interested in joining the NMA team can reach Dana Murray at dmurray@northomahahusic.org or assistant Andrew Bailey at abailey@northomahahusic.org. And mark your calendars — the NMA Fest is on the horizon.
The show closed on a note of joy, with viewer Aeros 402 sharing a personal blessing in the chat: “My only daughter gave birth to my second granddaughter. They are both new and good. I feel blessed.” That’s the heartbeat of this show — community wins, big and small, celebrated together.
Tune in Monday morning for another edition of 1st Sky Omaha in the Morning — because the conversation is just getting started.
