Friday morning came in warm on 1st Sky Omaha in the Morning, and hosts Paul B. and Buddy the God made good on their promise to shift gears after a heavy stretch of election coverage. “We’ve been talking a lot of politics for a while and it’s time for a little break after the primaries,” Paul B. said with a grin. “Love Supreme’s going down today for sure.” And love supreme it was — from community wins to a conversation that may have been one of the most important the show has hosted all season.
Before diving into the main event, the hosts paused to celebrate some bright spots across the city. Core Science Bio Diagnostics took home a $52,000 prize, and Omaha North’s engineering program earned national recognition — the kind of news that reminds you there is a lot going right in this city when you look for it. Viewer Aeros 402 brought his own piece of joy to the chat: “On a love note, my only daughter gave birth to my second granddaughter. They are both new and good. I feel blessed.” It was exactly the energy the morning called for.
The centerpiece of the show was a rich, wide-ranging conversation with Dana Murray, founder and director of the North Omaha Music Academy — known to many as NMA, and formerly as Love’s Jazz. A musician and educator originally from South Omaha, Murray spent eleven years in New York City before returning home to plant something lasting on North 24th Street. What he’s building, he made clear, is far bigger than a music school.
“NMA is obviously a youth music academy,” Murray said. “It is a performance space and a performance venue. If you think of Omaha Performing Arts and what it means to downtown — not only as a cultural, music, and entertainment entity that imports talent, but as an economic vehicle that brings in $40 to $50 million in revenue every year — that’s what we’re building toward for North Omaha.”
That vision for North 24th Street — “the Deuce,” as the hosts have long called it — was at the heart of the conversation. Paul B. has never minced words about what that corridor means. “I’ve always called it the most important black corner in Nebraska,” he said. “We got to serve it. We have to be of service to it.” Murray echoed that conviction while also naming the challenge honestly. The area that can most legitimately claim the title of Omaha’s cultural and arts district, he argued, is the North 24th Street corridor — but reclaiming that identity requires more than nostalgia. “We’ve been so far removed from that,” Murray said. “It is hard to build momentum from within when a lot of the community can’t relate to the power of what was.”
His blueprint is practical and ambitious in equal measure: enough housing, services, parking, and eateries to make the corridor self-sustaining, paired with destination attractions — entertainment, restaurants, lounges — that draw people in. And at the top of his wish list? A hotel. “With a hotel, now you can throw larger attractions, music festivals, and conferences right in the community,” he said.
Murray was candid about the cultural work that has to accompany the physical development. Growing up in South Omaha, he said, didn’t make him an outsider to North Omaha’s story. “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.” But he was equally direct about what he sees as a missed opportunity in how the community presents itself. “At every opportunity, we fail at taking advantage of showcasing our culture and highlighting the excellence of who we are,” he said, pointing to events like Native Omaha Days as occasions with untapped potential to invite all of Omaha — and Iowa — to the table. Viewer Pops connected personally with that thread, noting in the chat: “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.”
On the subject of the young people NMA serves, Murray was both clear-eyed and hopeful. He acknowledged the challenge of reaching kids in a world where learning flows through YouTube, Instagram, and ChatGPT — and said the answer isn’t to fight that reality but to work within it. “We have to figure out how to inspire them within the world they live in,” he said. The instructors NMA recruits, he emphasized, must bring more than technical skill. “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. The why you’re doing it is everything.” Viewer Derek Higgins kept it simple in the chat: “Congrats, Dana, and what NMA is doing.”
Murray also addressed something he called a quiet crisis for North Omaha: brain drain. With the community representing perhaps eleven or twelve percent of the city’s broader population, he said, the inability to retain homegrown talent is “devastating.” NMA’s development, he argued, is inseparable from the community’s development. “We need the community to be all it can be to reinforce what we’re trying to instill into the young people.”
And the future? Murray’s sights are set high. NMA is preparing a capital campaign with a first phase of $20 million, with the long-term goal of a full campus. “Money is not our issue in North Omaha,” he said with conviction. “It’s transformative ideas that are going to allow us to be not only sustainable but gainfully active.” At its core, he said, what NMA is really protecting and monetizing is something priceless: “Our culture is equity. Our brilliance, our artistic genius is equity. Every music in America has been built off of our experience.”
Paul B. brought the morning full circle with the concept of the “secondary matrix” — the deeper purpose that runs beneath everything being built. “Everything you’re doing really does kind of have a secondary matrix,” he said. “You have a reason behind it — a deeper meaning.” Buddy the God grounded it in urgency: “We got to do both — build our own ecosystems and continue to do the work — because the ecosystem we have been relying on is crumbling before our very eyes.”
NMA Fest is on the horizon, and Paul B. didn’t hold back his enthusiasm for the lineup. “When I’m comparing festivals, I’m saying this one to me is the one,” he said. “If I was going to put a festival together, it’d be this.” For anyone wanting to learn more about NMA, get involved, or inquire about music instructor positions, Dana Murray can be reached at dmurray@northomahamusic.org, and assistant Andrew Bailey at abailey@northomahamusic.org.
It was that kind of Friday — the kind that reminds you why mornings in Omaha are worth showing up for. Join Paul B., Buddy the God, and the whole First Sky family back on the air Monday morning. You won’t want to miss what’s next.
