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 energy that name promises — warm, wide-awake, and rooted in community. Between post-primary reflections, a North Omaha entrepreneurial win worth celebrating, and a guest who is quietly building something remarkable on North 24th Street, Episode 53 gave listeners plenty to carry into their weekend.
Paul B. set the tone early, framing the show’s “Love Supreme Friday” philosophy in terms that felt both personal and purposeful. “All this political fighting and stuff we do so that we can live the kind of life we want to live,” he said, “which is artist life — living alive and sharing just life with each other.” It’s a reminder that behind every civic conversation on this show is something deeper — what Paul B. calls the “secondary matrix.”
“Everything that we do has a secondary meaning, a deeper meaning,” he explained. “On the surface we’re a couple of talking heads — but what we’re really trying to do is build community, build coalition, build a family of people that we can regularly talk to and come to some conclusions and get to some action.” Viewer Pops captured the feeling perfectly in the chat: “Thanks for another great week of shows. You and the Chat Chimers have made First Sky a true pillar in the community.”
The show touched briefly on the aftermath of the recent primaries, with Buddy the God urging listeners not to let the moment pass without reflection. “None of this — a lot of this doesn’t matter if everybody voted,” he said plainly. Viewer Sean McCarthy added a sobering data point to the conversation, noting that “the Douglas County Election Commissioner said the average primary voter turnout percentage was around 35% in Douglas County.” Buddy’s response was characteristically direct: civic engagement isn’t optional if the goal is real change. He added, “We got to do both. We have to build our own ecosystems and continue to do the things that are about to be talked about, but in the long run we do got to figure this out as a nation.”
The show also paused to celebrate Charell Shelton, a North Omaha entrepreneur who recently received a $52,000 prize — a moment the hosts held up as exactly the kind of win the community deserves to amplify. And viewer Judy Princ offered a line that could have been the episode’s unofficial motto: “If you are sad or angry, go out and help others. Your attitude will change.”
The centerpiece of the morning was a conversation with Dana Murray, executive director and founder of the North Omaha Music Academy (NMA). A South Omaha native who spent eleven years in New York City before coming home, Murray has planted NMA firmly on North 24th Street — what Paul B. has long called “the most important Black corner in Nebraska” — and he has a vision for it that is anything but small.
Murray spoke with the quiet authority of someone who has thought deeply about what’s missing and what’s possible. “Really, the area that has the most history and the one that can claim ‘we are a cultural and arts district’ for real is the North 24th Street corridor,” he said. “And we’ve been so far removed from that — 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 for revitalizing the corridor is practical and bold in equal measure. A thriving district, he argued, needs the basics — housing, laundromats, eateries, parking, gas stations — alongside destination anchors like restaurants, lounges, and entertainment venues. “With a hotel, now you can throw larger attractions, music festivals, and conferences right in the community,” he added. Viewer Pops connected the conversation to living history, noting that “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.”
Though Murray grew up in South Omaha, he pushed back on any notion that North 24th Street belongs only to those who grew up there. “If you’re Black and you’re in Omaha, especially in the 70s and early 80s, everyone had a shared relationship with North Omaha,” he said. “That was the Mecca for us.” He’s tried to honor that by making NMA a beacon for all of Omaha — and the results have spoken for themselves. “People don’t have any problem coming from wherever they are in Omaha or Iowa to come down North 24th Street to hear jazz music.”
At its core, NMA is a youth music academy and performance venue — but Murray’s ambitions reach far beyond music lessons. He pointed to Omaha Performing Arts as a model, noting that it generates $40 to $50 million in economic activity for downtown Omaha each year. “That’s what we’re building toward for North Omaha,” he said. The first phase of NMA’s capital campaign is set at $20 million, with a full campus as the long-term goal. “Money is not our issue really in North Omaha,” Murray said. “It’s transformative ideas that are going to allow us to be not only sustainable but gainfully active.”
Perhaps the most resonant moment of the interview came when Murray reframed Black culture itself as an economic asset. “Our culture is equity,” he said. “Every music in America has been built off of our experience — from the hardest rock music to the jazziest jazz music to the poppiest of pop music, you trace it all the way back to the music that was brought over here from Africa. The sooner we look at it not as ‘oh, that’s a cool little music thing’ but as equity for us to build and monetize for our community, the better we’re going to be.”
NMA is currently seeking music instructors who are as much about inspiration as instruction. “The why you’re doing it is everything,” Murray said. “They don’t need us for the what; they can go to YouTube and see anything we’re trying to teach them.” Interested instructors can reach Murray directly at dmurray@northomahamusic.org or his assistant Andrew Bailey at abailey@northomahamusic.org.
Viewer Senator KML summed up the room’s feeling with a simple message in the chat: “Thank you, Uncle Dana. You’re changing lives in big ways. We are the students.”
It was that kind of Friday — the kind that reminds you why mornings like this matter. Join Paul B., Buddy the God, and the whole First Sky family next week for more conversation, community, and a little Love Supreme.
