It was a Love Supreme Friday on 1st Sky Omaha in the Morning, and hosts Paul B. and Buddy the God made sure the energy matched the occasion. After weeks of heavy political coverage surrounding Nebraska’s midterm primary elections, Paul B. set the tone from the jump. “We’ve been talking a lot of politics for a while and it’s time to change our mindsets over to something else — it’s a decision,” he said. “It’s going to be Love Supreme Friday today.” And with that, the show pivoted to something the Omaha community could truly pour its heart into: arts, education, and the soul of North 24th Street.
The election results weren’t entirely off the table, though. Buddy the God offered a sobering reflection on civic participation, noting, “None of this really matters if everybody voted. It’s a pretty valid point that a lot of this doesn’t matter if everybody voted.” Paul B. echoed that with a striking statistic from Raquel Henderson of the mayor’s office: “Only 339,000 out of more than 1.2 million registered voters in Nebraska showed up yesterday. Posting on Facebook is not enough. Awareness without action changes nothing.” Viewer Kimber Snipes offered a gentler counterpoint in the chat: “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 the kind of nuanced, community-minded exchange that makes Friday mornings with 1st Sky feel like something worth waking up for.
Then came the conversation the whole show was building toward. Dana Murray — founder and executive director of the North Omaha Music Academy (NMA) — joined the hosts for a wide-ranging, visionary discussion about what North Omaha is, what it can be, and why the arts are the engine that gets it there.
Murray, who spent eleven years in New York City as a musician before returning to Omaha, is the kind of person who speaks in blueprints. His organization, formerly known as Love’s Jazz and now rebranded as the North Omaha Music Academy, sits right in the heart of the North 24th Street corridor — a stretch Paul B. has long called “the most important black corner in Nebraska.” Murray’s vision for that corridor is both sentimental and sharply practical.
“Look at old pictures and you see on a Saturday morning North 24th Street is filled with people just walking around, shopping, going to eat breakfast, men in their suits. It was a vibe,” Murray said. “As a district, you have to have enough housing, places of service, parking, laundromats, eateries, gas stations — all the things any area needs to be self-sustained. And then you have to have destinations. It would be great to have a hotel. With a hotel, now you can throw larger attractions, music festivals, conferences right in the community.”
Viewer Pops chimed in with a personal touch that brought Murray’s vision into sharp historical relief: “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.” History has roots there. The question is whether Omaha is ready to grow something new from them.
Murray grew up in South Omaha, and Paul B. asked him directly how he sees his place in the North Omaha ecosystem. His answer was disarming and instructive. “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,” he said. He went on to challenge what he called a “false sense of security with pride” that sometimes keeps the community from fully showcasing its culture to the wider city. He pointed to South Omaha’s Cinco de Mayo celebration as a model: “They invite everybody. I’ve tried to reach out and be a beacon for all of Omaha to come down to North 24th Street, and people don’t have any problem coming from wherever they are to hear jazz music or whatever we present. That taboo about the area’s ability to be an attraction was false. We’ve proven that.”
At the heart of NMA’s mission is something deeper than music lessons. Paul B. introduced what he called the “secondary matrix” concept to frame it: “Dana Murray teaches kids music on the surface, but the secondary matrix is creating critical thinkers who will go further in their fields because they have the discipline of musical training.” Murray couldn’t have agreed more. “We’re not only raising musicians but more importantly raising more critical-thinking human beings,” he said, noting that NMA also offers electives in live sound, broadcasting, live streaming, and podcasting. “It’s not just teaching them ‘you can be this someday.’ No — you can be this right now.”
Murray was candid about the challenges of reaching today’s youth. “We are in crisis with education — not just young black kids, young kids in general — because we are losing the ability to inspire them,” he said. His approach is to meet students where they are, inside the digital world they already inhabit, rather than forcing outdated curricula on them. “We are the students,” he said simply — a line that landed so well that viewer Senator KML echoed it directly in the chat: “Thank you, Uncle Dana. You’re changing lives in big ways. We are the students.”
Looking ahead, Murray shared that NMA is preparing to launch a capital campaign with a first phase goal of $20 million, with an eye toward building a full NMA campus. His framing was ambitious but grounded. “If you think of Omaha Performing Arts and what it means to downtown — not only as a cultural entity but as an economic vehicle bringing in $40 to $50 million in revenue every year — that’s what we’re building for North Omaha,” he said. “What we have to sell in most black communities is our culture. Our culture is equity. Our brilliance, our artistic genius is equity. The sooner we understand that, the better off we’re going to be.”
Music instructors interested in joining the NMA team can reach Dana Murray at dmurray@northomahamusic.org or assistant Andrew Bailey at abailey@northomahamusic.org. Murray was clear that passion for inspiring young people matters as much as technical teaching ability. “They don’t need us for the ‘what’ — they can go to YouTube and see anything we’re trying to teach them,” he said. “The why they’re doing it is everything.”
The show wrapped on a high note, with viewer Aeros 402 sharing some personal joy in 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 a perfect Love Supreme Friday moment — a reminder that community isn’t just policy and economics. Sometimes it’s a new life arriving right on cue.
If this episode was any indication, 1st Sky Omaha in the Morning is doing exactly what Paul B. says North 24th Street should do: be a destination, invite everybody in, and give the community something worth showing up for. Tune in Monday morning and see what’s next.
