It was a Love Supreme Friday on 1st Sky Omaha in the Morning, and hosts Paul B. and Buddy the God brought exactly the kind of conversation Omaha needs — grounded, forward-thinking, and unapologetically rooted in community. From a post-primary reality check to a deeply inspiring sit-down with a man quietly building something extraordinary on North 24th Street, Season 4, Episode 53 was the kind of show you wanted to share with your neighbor before the coffee got cold.
The episode opened with the hosts reflecting on Nebraska’s recent primary results, and neither Paul B. nor Buddy the God was in the mood to sugarcoat things. Paul B. made his position plain when it comes to civic engagement in the social media age.
“Posting on Facebook is not enough. Awareness without action changes nothing.”
The chat lit up with viewers weighing in. Viewer Kimber Snipes offered some nuance: “I’ve been having 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. 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’s the kind of comment that doesn’t let anyone fully off the hook — not the voters, and not the system — and it set the tone for a show that kept asking harder questions all morning long.
Buddy the God framed the bigger picture with characteristic clarity, pushing the conversation beyond the ballot box and into the deeper work of community building. “We got to do both,” he said, “— build our own ecosystems and continue to figure out the political structure we’re a part of whether we want to be or not.” That word — ecosystem — would echo throughout the rest of the morning, threading together politics, culture, economics, and education in a way that felt less like a talk show and more like a community planning session with good music in the background.
Paul B. also introduced what he called the “secondary matrix” — the idea that everything the show does carries a deeper purpose beneath the surface. “Everything that we do has a secondary meaning, a deeper meaning,” he explained. “On the surface we’re talking heads — but what we’re really trying to do is build community, build coalition.” Viewer Pops connected with the idea immediately, sharing: “I experienced my secondary matrix in junior high when I took algebra. I was gaining proficiency and I noticed that I was suddenly able to think outside the box on several different levels. Music the same.”
Which brought the show to its main event: a rich, wide-ranging conversation with Dana Murray, Executive Director of the North Omaha Music Academy (NMA). Murray — a musician and educator who grew up in South Omaha, spent eleven years in New York City, and came back home to build something lasting — is a man with both a poet’s vision and a strategist’s mind. The NMA, located on the North 24th Street corridor at the historic intersection Paul B. has long called “the most important Black corner in Nebraska,” is already far more than a music school.
“NMA is a youth music academy, a performance space, and a performance venue,” Murray said. “If you think of Omaha Performing Arts and what it means to downtown — not only as a cultural and music 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 trying to build for North Omaha.”
Murray was candid about what it takes to revitalize a corridor like North 24th Street. He spoke about the need for housing density, essential services, parking, and — crucially — genuine destination attractions like restaurants, venues, and eventually a hotel that could anchor larger festivals and conferences right in the community. But he was equally candid about the dangers of wishful thinking. “There’s been a whole lot of stuff on North 24th Street that wasn’t sustainable,” he said plainly. “I can’t get caught up in the emotion of redevelopment. The X’s and O’s have to make sense.”
At NMA, the X’s and O’s look like this: kids learning instruments, yes, but also live sound engineering, broadcasting, podcasting, and conducting interviews with working artists. Murray is clear that not every student is destined for a stage. “We’re not only raising musicians but, more importantly, we’re raising more critical-thinking human beings,” he said. “Some will become doctors, lawyers, business owners — whatever they choose to do, they’re going to be better because they were aligned with artistry.” The students aren’t just learning that they could work in music, he emphasized — they’re doing it right now.
Murray also spoke passionately about teaching students the stories of homegrown legends like Buddy Miles and Victor Lewis — not as distant historical footnotes, but as living context. “If you give kids context, they connect the dots for themselves and they start to see the wins and the losses in not only Black people but the rest of the country,” he said. “Then they can see how they can be impactful within that ecosystem. Now you’ve got a critical-thinking human.”
Looking ahead, Murray described a $20 million capital campaign as the first phase of a larger NMA campus — a true anchor institution for North Omaha. “Money is not our issue in North Omaha,” he said. “It’s transformative ideas that are going to allow us to be not only sustainable but gainfully active. Our culture is equity. Our artistic genius is equity. The sooner we understand that, the better off we’re going to be.” Viewer Senator KML summed up the sentiment in the chat simply: “Thank you, Uncle Dana. You’re changing lives in big ways. We are the students.”
Paul B. closed the interview with the kind of audacious hope that defines the show’s spirit: “I want one of your students to win a Grammy out of nowhere. You know what I’m saying?” Given everything Dana Murray is building, it doesn’t sound far-fetched at all.
Music instructors or educators interested in getting involved with NMA can reach Dana Murray at dmurray@northomahamusic.org or his assistant Andrew Bailey at abailey@northomahamusic.org.
It was, by any measure, a Friday worth waking up early for. Join Paul B., Buddy the God, and the whole 1st Sky family back on Monday morning — and bring a friend who needs to hear something good.
