It was a Friday morning that called for a little soul-stirring — and the crew at 1st Sky Omaha in the Morning delivered exactly that. Host Paul B. declared it “Love Supreme Friday” right out of the gate, a deliberate choice after a week heavy with political tension and online back-and-forth in the show’s community group. “There’s a lot of chatter going on on Friends of First Sky Omaha,” Paul B. said with characteristic candor. “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.”
But love doesn’t mean looking away from hard truths, and the show wasted no time diving into the aftermath of Nebraska’s midterm primaries. The numbers were sobering: only 339,000 out of more than 1.2 million registered voters in Nebraska cast a ballot. Viewer Raquel Henderson put it plainly in the chat: “Posting on Facebook is not enough. Awareness without action changes nothing.” Paul B. echoed the sentiment forcefully: “Everybody has something to say. Everybody’s angry. Everybody’s debating policies and leadership decisions online. Where is that same energy when it’s time to organize, educate, mobilize, register, and actually vote?”
The conversation was nuanced, though — not a pile-on. Viewer Kimber Snipes offered a compassionate counterpoint, writing that in her 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.” It was exactly the kind of community dialogue the show was built for.
Co-host Buddy the God brought the practical wisdom, as he often does. “We got to do both,” he said. “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 far as a nation.” That word — ecosystem — became a throughline for the entire morning. Paul B. described what he calls the “secondary matrix,” the idea that everything the show does has a deeper purpose beneath the surface. “On the surface, we’re a couple of talking heads that talk about some news with the community,” he said, “but what we’re really trying to do is build community, build some coalition, build a family of people that we can regularly talk to and come to some conclusions and get to some action.”
The show also lifted up a few community bright spots before welcoming its featured guest: Charell Shelton’s North Omaha diagnostic lab and the Heart Ministry Center’s forthcoming grocery store both drew praise as examples of exactly the kind of ecosystem-building the hosts champion each week.
Then came Dana Murray.
The founder and executive director of the North Omaha Music Academy (NMA) brought an energy that had the chat section lighting up from the moment he appeared. A South Omaha native who spent eleven years in New York City before returning home, Murray has planted something remarkable on North 24th Street — a youth music academy and performance venue that is as much about developing whole human beings as it is about developing musicians.
“We’re not only raising musicians, but more importantly we’re raising more critical thinking human beings,” Murray said, “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 about NMA was impossible to separate from a larger vision for North 24th Street itself — what Paul B. has long called “the most important Black corner in Nebraska.” Murray described the corridor with the reverence of someone who understands what it once was and what it can 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,” he said. He recalled old photographs of a bustling Saturday morning scene — people shopping, eating breakfast, men in suits simply enjoying their neighborhood. “It was a vibe. There was a unity, a love, and a togetherness that was there.”
Murray was candid about the internal barriers that can hold a community back from reclaiming that identity. “One of the things that holds us back is this false sense of security with pride as it pertains to North Omaha,” he said, pointing to missed opportunities to invite all of Omaha — and beyond — into what the community has to offer. His approach at NMA has been to serve as exactly that kind of beacon. “People don’t have any problem coming from wherever they are in Omaha or Iowa to come down North 24th Street to hear jazz music,” he said simply.
Beyond music lessons, NMA is already functioning as a multi-disciplinary learning hub. Students are being trained in live sound, broadcast production, live streaming, and interviewing — skills that translate directly into careers. “We teach kids broadcast work,” Murray said. “So it’s not just telling them, ‘oh, you can be this.’ No — you can be this right now. Once you remove those barriers, the sky’s the limit.”
And the sky, for Murray, includes a $20 million capital campaign and an eventual NMA campus. He invoked Omaha Performing Arts — an institution that generates $40 to $50 million in revenue annually for the downtown area — as a model for what NMA could become for North Omaha. “Money is not really our issue in North Omaha,” he said. “It’s transformative ideas that are going to allow us to be not only sustainable but gainfully active.”
One of the morning’s most resonant moments came when Murray addressed the idea that Black culture itself is equity. “Every music in America has been built off of our experience — from the hardest rock music to the jazziest jazz music to the poppiest pop music, you trace it all the way back to the music that was brought over here from Africa,” he said. “And that’s equity.” Viewer Pops added a personal touch to the conversation, noting that Paul B.’s own grandfather once hosted artists like Fats Domino when they came to perform in Omaha — a reminder that the roots of this cultural legacy run deep and close to home.
For those interested in teaching at NMA, Murray is looking for instructors who can do more than deliver technical instruction. “Unless you’re able to inspire a young person, they don’t really have the attention span for the X’s and O’s of music,” he said. Interested educators can reach Murray at DMurray@northomahamusic.org or his assistant Andrew Bailey at ABailey@northomahamusic.org. The upcoming NMA Fest is also on the horizon — a community celebration that will bring performers like Mono Neon and Moini Day to the deuce.
The show closed the way it began — with warmth and intention. Buddy the God offered an open invitation to anyone wondering how they can contribute: “All you have to do is find where you fit in. The lanes are running. The lanes are wide open. Just get in where you fit in and make it happen.” And on a morning that balanced civic accountability with community joy, the arrival of a new granddaughter — shared by viewer Aeros 402, who wrote simply, “my only daughter gave birth to my second granddaughter. They are both new and good. I feel blessed” — was perhaps the most Love Supreme moment of all.
If you missed this Friday’s show, do yourself a favor and catch the replay. And if you haven’t yet joined the 1st Sky Omaha in the Morning community, there’s never been a better time — these are exactly the conversations our city needs to be having. Tune in Monday morning and pull up a chair.
