It was a Love Supreme Friday on 1st Sky Omaha in the Morning, and hosts Paul B. and Buddy the God brought the kind of energy that makes you want to pull up a chair and stay awhile. Between a deep dive into Nebraska’s recent primary results, a conversation about civic engagement in North Omaha, and a wide-ranging interview with one of the community’s most visionary educators, the show delivered exactly what it promises — warmth, wisdom, and a whole lot of love for the city.
Paul B. set the tone early, acknowledging the weight of the moment without letting it drag the room down. “It’s real easy to let your emotions take over when there’s so much to be emotional about — hot, mad, sad, all kinds of things,” he said. “And then it just, hey, well, let’s make a decision to change it up today.” That spirit of intentional positivity carried through the entire broadcast.
The show touched on Nebraska’s primary elections and the persistent challenge of voter turnout. Buddy the God didn’t mince words: “None of this really matters if everybody voted. That’s a pretty valid point — a lot of this doesn’t matter if everybody voted.” Viewer Sean McCarthy chimed in from the chat with some sobering context, noting that “the Douglas County Election Commissioner said the average primary voter turnout percentage was around 35% in Douglas County” — and adding that “one huge problem is so many of these positions don’t pay a living wage, so only those who can afford to hold those positions run.” It’s the kind of structural observation that tends to get lost in the noise, and it landed.
But the heart of Friday’s show belonged to Dana Murray, executive director and founder of the North Omaha Music Academy (NMA), located on the historic North 24th Street corridor. Murray — a musician and educator who grew up in South Omaha, spent eleven years in New York City, and then came back to build something lasting — spoke with the clarity and conviction of someone who has done the math and knows exactly what the community needs.
“The arts are the core of who we are as people — definitely as black people,” Murray said. “With a lot of the development going on, infrastructure-wise, very little is talked about the social, people development, healing that has to happen to even take advantage of all the opportunities.” He described his work as shining light on things that are real but hard to quantify — the kind of human development that doesn’t always show up on a grant report but absolutely shows up in a child’s life.
Paul B. framed it beautifully with what he called the “secondary matrix” — the idea that organizations like NMA operate on multiple levels simultaneously. “In Dana Murray’s case, he teaches kids music — and on the surface that’s what it is,” Paul B. explained. “But the secondary matrix is to create critical thinkers, create people that can go further in their fields because they have the discipline of musical training and the mind-expanding benefits of that training.” Viewer Pops recognized it immediately, writing in: “I experienced my secondary matrix in junior high when I took algebra. I was gaining proficiency and noticed I was suddenly able to think outside the box on several different levels. Music the same.”
Murray described NMA not just as a music school, but as a full ecosystem — instrument instruction, live sound engineering, broadcasting, podcast production, and a performance venue all under one roof. “It’s not just telling them they can be this someday — no, you can be this right now,” he said. “Once you remove those barriers, the sky is the limit.” He also spoke candidly about the challenge of inspiring young people in the age of Google and ChatGPT, arguing that NMA’s instructors must bring something the algorithm cannot: the ability to make a young person understand the why behind what they’re learning.
On the subject of North 24th Street — what Paul B. has long called “the most important black corner in Nebraska” — Murray laid out a practical, metrics-driven vision for revitalization. He pointed to housing, services, parking, destinations, and eventually a hotel as the infrastructure needed to make the corridor truly self-sustaining. He also challenged what he called a “false sense of security with pride,” arguing that the community must be willing to invite all of Omaha in, the way South Omaha’s Cinco de Mayo does. “That taboo about the area was false,” he said plainly. “We’ve proven that.”
Murray also spoke passionately about “brain drain” — the loss of talented young people to larger cities — calling it “a killer for Omaha” and noting that North Omaha, representing roughly eleven to twelve percent of the city’s population, bears a disproportionate share of that loss. His long-term vision includes a $20 million capital campaign and, eventually, an NMA campus that could serve North Omaha the way Omaha Performing Arts serves downtown. “Money is not our issue in North Omaha, really,” he said. “It’s transformative ideas. What we have to sell in most black communities is our culture. If we don’t monetize it, the rest of the country monetizes our culture for us.”
He closed with a line that stopped the room: “Every music in America has been built off of our experience, from the hardest rock to the jazziest jazz to the poppiest pop — you trace it all back to the music brought over from Africa. That’s equity. We are just plain rich as a people.”
The chat was alive with affirmation throughout. Viewer Senator KML wrote simply, “Thank you, Uncle Dana. You’re changing lives in big ways. We are the students.” And in a warm moment that reminded everyone why community television matters, viewer Aeros 402 shared some personal joy: “On a love note, my only daughter gave birth to my second granddaughter. They are both new and good. I feel blessed.” Because on Love Supreme Friday, that kind of news belongs in the conversation too.
The NMA Fest is coming up — four nights of live music on the 24th Street corridor — and Paul B. put it plainly: “When I’m comparing festivals, I’m saying this one to me is the one. If I was going to put a festival together, it’d be this.” Educators and instructors interested in joining NMA’s team can reach Dana Murray at dmurray@northomahamusic.org or assistant Andrew Bailey at abailey@northomahamusic.org.
It was one of those episodes that reminds you what morning television can be when it’s rooted in community, curiosity, and genuine love for the people it serves. Don’t miss what’s next — tune in to 1st Sky Omaha in the Morning and be part of the conversation.
