Friday mornings on 1st Sky Omaha in the Morning have a way of finding exactly the right gear — and this past episode was no exception. Hosts Paul B. and Buddy the God made a deliberate choice to steer the show toward something generative, even as the week’s news gave plenty of reasons to feel heavy. “We have to make a decision,” Paul B. told the audience. “It’s going to be Love Supreme Friday today. And we’re going to change our mindsets over to something else — because it’s real easy to let your emotions take over when there’s so much to be emotional about.”
The morning had opened with a brief but honest reckoning with Nebraska’s primary election results. Buddy the God didn’t mince words about voter turnout: “None of this — a lot of this — doesn’t matter if everybody voted. And as I’ve been listening to conversations and doing reading myself, that’s a pretty valid point.” The chat was already firing on all cylinders. Viewer Raquel Henderson, quoted by the hosts, put a sharp point on it: “Only 339,032 out of more than 1.2 million registered voters in Nebraska showed up yesterday. Think about that for a second. And yet 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?”
It was a sobering note — but the show had somewhere purposeful to go. Buddy the God signaled the pivot with characteristic clarity: “We are going to need some solidarity in the now. In order to do that, we are going to need some love supreme, some creativity in the now.” That creativity had a name and a face: Dana Murray, executive director and founder of the North Omaha Music Academy (NMA), located on historic North 24th Street.
Murray is a musician and educator who grew up in South Omaha, spent eleven years sharpening his craft in New York City, and came home to build something lasting. His academy — formerly known as Love’s Jazz — is part youth music school, part performance venue, and, as the conversation revealed, part blueprint for what North Omaha could become. Paul B. had already set the table before Murray even spoke, invoking what he calls the “secondary matrix” — the idea that the deeper purpose beneath an action is often more transformative than the action itself. “In Dana Murray’s case, he teaches kids music,” Paul B. explained, “but we all know that when you learn music, your brain synapses start firing in different ways. You become a better student, more intelligent.”
Murray arrived with the quiet confidence of someone who has thought long and hard about what he’s doing and why. When asked about his vision for the North 24th Street corridor — what Paul B. has long called “the most important Black corner in Nebraska” — Murray was both clear-eyed and ambitious. He pointed to the success of Omaha’s other redeveloping districts and argued that none of them can match the cultural foundation that North 24th already possesses. “The challenge is that a lot of the community within can’t relate to the power of what was,” he said. His prescription was practical: enough housing, services, and infrastructure to be self-sustaining, plus destinations — entertainment, restaurants, and eventually a hotel — to draw visitors for festivals and conferences. “A lot of stuff on North 24th Street wasn’t sustainable, and I can’t get caught up in the emotion of redevelopment,” Murray said. “The X’s and O’s have to make sense.”
As a South Omaha native building roots on the North Side, Murray also addressed the question of belonging with candor. He argued that North Omaha was never a geographically exclusive space — it was a shared cultural Mecca for Black Omahans across the city. But he also offered a pointed challenge to how the community presents itself to the wider world. “At every opportunity, we fail at showcasing our culture and highlighting our excellence,” he said, drawing a contrast between Native Omaha Days and South Omaha’s Cinco de Mayo celebration. “They champion their culture and invite everybody.” Murray said he’s tried to be that kind of beacon — and that the results speak for themselves. Viewer Mark Manor backed him up from the chat: “When I go there it is the same people at shows at Waiting Room, Slow Down, and the Jewels. So people are coming from all around town and getting down at NMA, which I find impressive as well.”
The scope of NMA extends well beyond music lessons. Murray described a curriculum that includes live sound engineering, broadcasting, podcasting, and live interview production — with the students themselves conducting artist interviews. “It’s not just telling them they can be something someday,” he said. “They can be it right now. Once you remove those barriers, the sky’s the limit.” He spoke passionately about brain drain as one of North Omaha’s most pressing challenges, and framed NMA’s broader mission in economic as well as cultural terms — comparing what he wants to build to what Omaha Performing Arts means for downtown, an institution that generates forty to fifty million dollars in revenue annually. A capital campaign with a first phase of twenty million dollars is on the horizon, with a full NMA campus as the long-term goal.
Murray closed with a statement that felt like the philosophical spine of the entire conversation. “Our culture is equity,” he said. “Our brilliance, our artistic genius, is equity. Every music in America has been built off of our experience. The sooner we look at it not as a cool little music thing but as equity for us to build and monetize for our community, the better we’re going to be.”
The chat was warm throughout. Viewer Pops offered a piece of living history — noting that artists like Fats Domino once stayed at Paul B.’s grandfather’s home when performing in the area — and called more infrastructure along the corridor “a godsend.” And in a moment of simple, beautiful contrast to everything else in the news cycle, viewer Aeros 402 shared: “On a love note, my only daughter gave birth to my second granddaughter. They are both new and good. I feel blessed.” It was, in its way, the whole show in miniature — community, continuity, and the stubborn insistence on joy.
Music instructors interested in joining the NMA team can reach Dana Murray at dmurray@northomahamusic.org or his assistant Andrew Bailey at abailey@northomahamusic.org.
If this episode is any indication, Season 4 of 1st Sky Omaha in the Morning is giving Omaha exactly what it needs right now — honest conversation, community vision, and a whole lot of love supreme. Join Paul B., Buddy the God, and the Chat Chimers back on the stream Monday morning. You won’t want to miss what comes next.
