It was a “Love Supreme Friday” on 1st Sky Omaha in the Morning, and hosts Paul B. and Buddy the God made good on that promise — wrapping a week of heavy political coverage with something that felt like a deep breath of fresh air. The May 15th edition of Season 4 turned its attention toward community building, cultural legacy, and the kind of grassroots work that doesn’t always make the evening news but quietly changes lives every single day.
The show opened with a nod to the week’s primary election results and the ongoing conversation about voter engagement in the Omaha community. Viewer Sean McCarthy shared a sobering data point — that the Douglas County Election Commissioner reported average primary voter turnout at around 35 percent — a number that sparked real discussion about how to close the gap between awareness and action. Viewer Kimber Snipes offered a more empathetic take, writing in that after 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,” adding that more education and deeper discussions might matter more right now than shame. Paul B. leaned into that spirit, reading aloud a Facebook post from community member Raquel Henderson that cut straight to the point:
“Posting on Facebook is not enough. Awareness without action changes nothing. We cannot keep sitting out the process and then feeling powerless when decisions are made without us.”
But politics, as Paul B. put it, was only part of the picture. “We’ve been talking a lot of politics for a while and it’s time for a little break — we’re going to change our mindsets over to something else. It’s Love Supreme Friday today.” And with that, the conversation shifted to something the hosts clearly hold close to their hearts: the idea that real community power is built not just at the ballot box, but block by block, classroom by classroom, note by note.
Buddy the God framed it with characteristic directness: “We got to do both — we have to build our own ecosystems and continue to do the things we’re about to talk about, but in the long run we do got to figure this out as a nation.” It was the perfect setup for the morning’s marquee guest.
Dana Murray, founder and executive director of the North Omaha Music Academy (NMA), joined the show for a conversation that was equal parts inspiring and practical. A South Omaha native who spent eleven years in New York City before returning home, Murray has spent years quietly building something remarkable at the corner of 24th and Lake — a stretch Paul B. described without hesitation as “the most important Black corner in Nebraska.”
Murray didn’t shy away from the complexity of that legacy. He acknowledged that while North 24th Street carries enormous cultural history, many of the people who live and work there today have grown disconnected from that story — and that gap makes momentum hard to build. His vision for the corridor is sweeping but grounded: enough housing to sustain a community, the right mix of services, and destination attractions — restaurants, lounges, music festivals, even a hotel — that draw people in from across Omaha and beyond.
And he’s already proving it can happen. When skeptics told him people wouldn’t come to North 24th Street, Murray pushed back with results. “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,” he said. “That taboo about the area and its ability to be an attraction was false. We’ve proven that.” Viewer Mark Manor backed that up from the chat, noting that the same crowds showing up at well-known Omaha music venues like Waiting Room and Slow Down are also coming out to NMA — a detail he called genuinely impressive.
NMA itself is more than a music school. Murray described it as a youth academy, a performance space, and a community vehicle all in one — drawing a deliberate comparison to Omaha Performing Arts, which he noted generates $40 to $50 million in economic activity annually for its neighborhood. “We’re not only raising musicians,” he said. “More importantly, we’re raising more critical thinking human beings.” Students at NMA don’t just learn to play instruments — they learn live sound engineering, broadcast production, live streaming, and even conduct interviews with visiting artists in a dedicated broadcast lab. “It’s not just teaching them ‘oh, you can be this someday,'” Murray said. “No, you can be this right now.”
Looking ahead, Murray shared that NMA has its sights set on a full campus — beginning with a $20 million capital campaign — because he believes the academy can serve as the kind of transformative anchor that reshapes an entire corridor. His conviction runs deep, and it’s rooted in something he wants the broader community to understand: “What we have to sell in most Black communities is our culture. 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.”
NMA is also actively seeking music instructors who can do more than teach technique. As Murray put it, “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.” Interested educators can reach Murray at dmurray@northomusicacademy.org or his assistant Andrew Bailey at abailey@northomusicacademy.org.
Through it all, the chat kept the morning grounded in the everyday warmth of community. Viewer Aeros 402 shared a piece of personal joy: “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 kind of moment that reminds you what Love Supreme Friday is really about.
If this episode was any indication, 1st Sky Omaha in the Morning is doing exactly what Paul B. described as its “secondary matrix” — something bigger than a morning talk show. “What we’re really trying to do,” he said, “is build community, build coalition, and be able to speak to a family of people that we can regularly talk to and come to some conclusions and get to some action.” Week after week, it sounds like they’re doing just that.
Tune in Monday morning and come be part of the conversation — your neighbors are already there.
