Speaker 1: Post Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: I'm so honored. This is my very first podcast.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. That means you've denied many a requests,
Speaker 3: but we made it.
Speaker 4: I misues, I'm sugar Steve.
Speaker 2: I love your name.
Speaker 1: Thank you a single.
Speaker 3: Don't ask about it if you want to.
Speaker 2: Say, don't make any inquiries that you're not looking for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm serious.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: I don't know where you are, but I know your
Speaker 4: Bill's managing now.
Speaker 5: But so I want to you get a lot done today.
Speaker 5: Dis years, I'm gonna get paid finally. All we've doing
Speaker 5: this for way too.
Speaker 1: Long that I haven't paid yet. It would be super jinky.
Speaker 6: This is gonna be the first time that I will
Speaker 6: admit on the air that I might be stealing the
Speaker 6: neighbors and Wi Fi. I was thinking, no, they don't
Speaker 6: know I'm stealing it. Shout out to apartment b letting me.
Speaker 6: This episode of Quest Left Supreme brought to you by
Speaker 6: my next door neighbors. Thank you, pladies and gentlemen. This
Speaker 6: is Quest Left Supreme. We are together again. We're together,
Speaker 6: all five of us. It's been a minute.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, hey William here.
Speaker 1: Hey Bill, have you you've been going a long time.
Speaker 5: I went to Fante's house to get cigarettes and I'm back.
Speaker 5: I'm back. I'm happy to be back. Thank you.
Speaker 6: So I'm hearing around the grape vine that you've created
Speaker 6: yet another Broadway hit.
Speaker 5: You know, people seem to like it. People come to
Speaker 5: see it. It's exciting.
Speaker 1: I'm you're in the buzz. I'm here in the buzz.
Speaker 5: I think you should come see it. I think everyone
Speaker 5: should come to see it. It's quite it's a good show.
Speaker 3: Tell you how Bill is? Just say that a mer
Speaker 3: I asked Bill. I said, so, how long is the
Speaker 3: show running? He was like, what do you mean? It
Speaker 3: just run? And I was like, oh, that's that happened
Speaker 3: to everybody, or okay, it's just Broadway into.
Speaker 6: Bill comes from Hamilton pedigree, so that means that anything
Speaker 6: he creates, you know. Meanwhile, like I've seen, like at
Speaker 6: least four of my friends kind of have to go
Speaker 6: back to the drawing board and you know, shut down
Speaker 6: there Broadway plays and you know.
Speaker 5: Oh sobar just speaking about things we create. January nineteenth
Speaker 5: is the premiere of jam Van Starry, starring three fifths
Speaker 5: of Quest Love Supreme Laiah as the Big Old Book
Speaker 5: of Travel.
Speaker 3: Get it first animation role Yep.
Speaker 5: And Fonte wrote a song for Davie Diggs, which is
Speaker 5: I believe episode three or four. But anyway, tune in
Speaker 5: YouTube Originals YouTube Kids, January nineteenth, first two episodes. Shout
Speaker 5: out to Quest Love Supreme. There you go.
Speaker 6: Yes, we took care of business. Yeah we are, we
Speaker 6: are talented. So, ladies and gentlemen, I will say that
Speaker 6: as a media Wait a minute, yes, media personality, now, absolutely,
Speaker 6: yeah you are. I'm a media personality. I'm not a
Speaker 6: drummer anymore. Okay, I'll take that. So I will say
Speaker 6: that as a media personality. I gotta think about that.
Speaker 6: You know, I was from a generation which radio was boss.
Speaker 6: Radio was the common denominator, even amongst our qols fam here.
Speaker 6: I know that I've had We've talked about Whyia's history
Speaker 6: as a radio personality in Philadelphia and other markets.
Speaker 1: What were your other markets besides Philadelphia? Atlanta, DMV, the Atlanta.
Speaker 6: Yes, you've done every shift, you've done, You've done the
Speaker 6: afternoon shifts. You've been midday mommies. You're you why it
Speaker 6: was a mid day mommy for a little bit. When
Speaker 6: you start in radio, I know that you start with
Speaker 6: weekends and off duty hours, and then you'd start in
Speaker 6: the morning, and then when you when they trust you
Speaker 6: enough to have your own afternoon show, you become a
Speaker 6: midday mommy.
Speaker 1: Wait, what's a guy get like does a guy get
Speaker 1: that title?
Speaker 3: Like York? No?
Speaker 2: Anyway, very few men mid days.
Speaker 3: We got to talk about it's a reason too.
Speaker 1: Oh I wouldn't. Yeah, this is going to be the
Speaker 1: radio educational show.
Speaker 6: Steve and I like are bonding even of this this
Speaker 6: very platform that we're on. Steve and I always talked
Speaker 6: and fantasized about, like both he and I come from
Speaker 6: a place where we used to have like as kids,
Speaker 6: our own uh you know, pretend radio shows. I know
Speaker 6: Steve to this day still has like collections of his
Speaker 6: You still have like your fantasy radio shows when you
Speaker 6: were like twelve, right, Oh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I have all that stuff. Plus I have an
Speaker 4: actual radio show these days on WKCR. I totally forgot
Speaker 4: that Steven Network actually had my own Sugar Network. Maybe
Speaker 4: I've maybe heard we're turning five years old in February.
Speaker 6: It's real, it's real. Yes, of course, Steve has his
Speaker 6: own network Fonte and Bill. I don't know what you
Speaker 6: guys were into. But I would assume that at some
Speaker 6: point in your life you two also had the radio
Speaker 6: fantasy of just I don't know Howard's tart is about
Speaker 6: to hit me with that. Noah, I never did that,
Speaker 6: do no, No, I did well.
Speaker 1: I didn't do radio.
Speaker 7: I did radio in my uh in college. I had
Speaker 7: a had a rat Meadpool actually had a show on
Speaker 7: audio Net, which is like our campus radio station, and
Speaker 7: you could listen to it like in your dorm room,
Speaker 7: and so I would do it there. I would make
Speaker 7: like tapes and stuff as a kid, and like act
Speaker 7: like a radio announcer, and you know, okay, yeah I
Speaker 7: And then I mean our first album WJLR, that was
Speaker 7: a fictional radio station.
Speaker 1: That's right, even on your own records, you.
Speaker 6: Had radio station multiple album I will basically say that
Speaker 6: you know, no music lever I know could resist the
Speaker 6: fantasy of playing radio station. And even to this day,
Speaker 6: like I make mixtapes for friends, I make the slow Jamp. Actually,
Speaker 6: our guest is also really responsible for like a game
Speaker 6: changing innovation in radio, which is the quiet storem for
Speaker 6: for met like I cannot even put forth any you know,
Speaker 6: and and a short amount of words of how instrumental
Speaker 6: and powerful our guest is today when it comes to radio.
Speaker 6: Simply put you know, between all the markets I've named
Speaker 6: the cities Atlanta, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Richmond, the dm.
Speaker 1: LS.
Speaker 6: Absolutely if your fans of Ricky Smiley, Russ Parr, Reverend
Speaker 6: NOWD Sharpton, T. D.
Speaker 1: Jakes, D L. Hughley, Erica Campbell like you can name
Speaker 1: them all.
Speaker 6: She's literally responsible one of the most powerful figures in communication.
Speaker 6: Owner of Urban One formerly Radio one, TV one, Interactive one.
Speaker 1: I cannot believe we pulled this off. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: We have the one and only Kathy Hughes one quest
Speaker 1: Love Supreme.
Speaker 6: That's probably the longest introduction I've ever given them life.
Speaker 2: I am so appreciative and it's so interesting. It's my
Speaker 2: very first podcast ever. I don't know what my staff
Speaker 2: is going to say about this.
Speaker 1: Are they scared? Are they nervous?
Speaker 2: Well, no, they've been trying to get me to do
Speaker 2: a podcast, really have not. Yes, you're the first I've
Speaker 2: said yes to. But I got to go back to
Speaker 2: the pretend radio stations. Mine was my bathroom and my
Speaker 2: microphone was a toothbrush. Really, there were six of us
Speaker 2: in the house, and I locked the bathroom door. I
Speaker 2: didn't give a damn that people had to go to
Speaker 2: school and work. I was doing a radio show and
Speaker 2: I never came out until my show is over, because
Speaker 2: I knew when I came out, I was going to
Speaker 2: be physically abused by everybody in the house. They were
Speaker 2: throwing things at me and banging. And the interesting thing,
Speaker 2: I only did two things. I did news and I
Speaker 2: did commercials. That was the start of my.
Speaker 1: Resiaon and the records at all.
Speaker 2: That's been any records being I didn't have a turntable
Speaker 2: in the bathroom, so we didn't have okay, and I
Speaker 2: can't sing, and so there was no music. It was
Speaker 2: all narrative. I practiced, and it's so interesting because I
Speaker 2: was very serious about it. I did it for years
Speaker 2: because my aspiration was to one day be the first
Speaker 2: African American woman to have a nationally syndicated radio show.
Speaker 2: And I knew I had to practice. And I was
Speaker 2: twelve years old, and I did my hour broadcast every
Speaker 2: single solitary morning. So finally my mother compromised with me
Speaker 2: and told me, if I had to have the bathroom
Speaker 2: for an hour. I had to do it between hours
Speaker 2: four am and five am, and I cheated. I would
Speaker 2: do five to six, okay, all right, but everybody was
Speaker 2: always you know, because in those days, I don't know
Speaker 2: how people family survived because it was only one bathroom
Speaker 2: and now all right, yeah, and we didn't even notice
Speaker 2: that there was only one bathroom and we had to
Speaker 2: go in except in the morning when I was joining
Speaker 2: my radio show. So that was the start of my
Speaker 2: career for you.
Speaker 6: Like when I mentioned radio, what were your memories of it?
Speaker 6: Who were you listening to as a kid?
Speaker 2: Well? Number one, I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and
Speaker 2: so I listened to Conway Twitty.
Speaker 1: What you know about Conway Twitty?
Speaker 2: Wow, That's who I listened to. We listened to all
Speaker 2: we listened to Righteous Brothers. We listened to. It was
Speaker 2: called country and Western. And my mother, for my twelfth birthday,
Speaker 2: for Chrisristmas, put a baker for a radio, a transistor
Speaker 2: radio as she put it in Layoway for Christmas. But
Speaker 2: she couldn't afford to get it out until April, and
Speaker 2: so I got it for my birthday and for the
Speaker 2: first time I could hear what I thought were black
Speaker 2: air personalities. They were really wolf Man, Jack and Hoss
Speaker 2: and all of these white personalities sounded like they were
Speaker 2: black because they didn't allow black men on radio back then. Wow.
Speaker 2: Really okay, And I was fantasizing about being this woman
Speaker 2: who was going to be on radio, not knowing that
Speaker 2: Hattie McDaniel was the first African American woman to have
Speaker 2: a nationally syndicated radio show. She was was forty years
Speaker 2: old when I found that out, and all the way
Speaker 2: from twelve years old to forty, my goal was to
Speaker 2: have a nationally syndicated radio show. So I was kind
Speaker 2: of thankful that God withheld that information from me. Okay.
Speaker 2: And it was so it because I was in the
Speaker 2: middle of teaching a class at Howard and I looked
Speaker 2: in this book that I wanted to recommend to my
Speaker 2: students to read, and there it was, and it was
Speaker 2: like the words popped out of a page in my eyes,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, oh, my goodness, I've been inspiring. But
Speaker 2: it's what was driving me. So I was really kind
Speaker 2: of glad that I did not know, because back in
Speaker 2: those days, syndicated radio was the thing. The NBC Radio series,
Speaker 2: the ABC Radio series, back in those days people way
Speaker 2: before anybody you know on this podcast was even born.
Speaker 2: We watched radio. We set around and when you look
Speaker 2: at the radio and you imagine and you visualize, and
Speaker 2: I mean some of my greatest radio memories were the
Speaker 2: boxing matches because my daddy was a big sports fan.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, the crowd, the enthusiasm, you felt you were
Speaker 2: actually there. And then my mother was a very accomplished music.
Speaker 2: She had a group called the International Sweethearts of Rhythm,
Speaker 2: eighteen piece all women's orchestra in the nineteen thirties and forties,
Speaker 2: and they were world renowned. They traveled all over Europe.
Speaker 2: They were in Germany, they were in France, they were
Speaker 2: in all these foreign countries playing for the American soldiers
Speaker 2: and they would have to do one night for the
Speaker 2: black soldiers, another night for the white soldiers. But the
Speaker 2: International Sweethearts of Rhythm were nicknamed by Earl Father Hines
Speaker 2: as the first Freedom writers because they were integrated and
Speaker 2: the white members of the band would actually darken their face.
Speaker 2: They would be in not black face, but they would
Speaker 2: have dark makeup on to pass for black. As they
Speaker 2: would travel through the South. And it was really interesting
Speaker 2: because the police. The stories they told about how the
Speaker 2: police would come aboard their bus. They had the first
Speaker 2: tour bus ever built. Because they couldn't stand tells. They
Speaker 2: took an old, deserted greyhound bus and put three stacks
Speaker 2: of bump bands, and that's where they rehearsed, that's where
Speaker 2: they lived, that's where they traveled throughout and the police
Speaker 2: would come on board the bus and they would think
Speaker 2: that the biracial women were the white women, and they
Speaker 2: would think that the white women were actually the black
Speaker 2: women because they would have them to make up.
Speaker 6: Oh what would have happened if they found out that
Speaker 6: white people and black people were together. They would have
Speaker 6: thought they were freedom writers and arrested.
Speaker 2: Them more absolutely, absolutely exactly. It was very dangerous. So,
Speaker 2: you know, so radio was like second nature to me
Speaker 2: because I've been trying to write this book for thirty years.
Speaker 2: And the book starts off when I was five years old,
Speaker 2: and it was the first time that I realized. My
Speaker 2: mother's picture was in the mirror at the Apollo and
Speaker 2: she's rushing. We're late for her a performance of her band,
Speaker 2: and I'm staying there staring at my mother. And that
Speaker 2: was the first time that I realized that that I
Speaker 2: was growing up in the entertainment industry. I don't know
Speaker 2: what you realized it, you know, because you tooques Love
Speaker 2: grew up in the entertainment industry. But that was the
Speaker 2: first time they had dawned up on me that my
Speaker 2: mother was more than just my mama, okay. And then
Speaker 2: that evening for the first time when I saw her
Speaker 2: on the stage, I was like, oh my goodness. Because
Speaker 2: back in those days, they made me sit on the
Speaker 2: front row because they wouldn't leave me backstage. I had
Speaker 2: seventeen aunties, so they can babysit me, because even back
Speaker 2: then they were worried about molestation and drugs were going
Speaker 2: on backstage, and so did you experience this, so that
Speaker 2: they would make me sit on the front road, so
Speaker 2: did they keep an eye on me.
Speaker 6: I sat at the bar. I was I was the
Speaker 6: only five year old allowed to sit at the bar.
Speaker 6: And then once I was seven, like I was working,
Speaker 6: I was stage manager. So they that's how they didn't
Speaker 6: believe in babysitters until way later.
Speaker 2: But absolutely yeah. And then a years later when I
Speaker 2: met Moms Maybley and read Fox when we reopened the
Speaker 2: Howard Theater in DC, They told me about how when
Speaker 2: I was a baby that the girls in the band
Speaker 2: would pull a drawer out in the hall and when
Speaker 2: they can stay in people's houses or in hotels, and
Speaker 2: that was my bass and net. They would take a
Speaker 2: drawer out of the dresser okay, and they would put
Speaker 2: covers in it, and that's where I would sleep.
Speaker 3: The first time we said Mom Maybley on this podcast,
Speaker 3: I was such a big fan of hers as a kid,
Speaker 3: like I'm I love you, thank you for saying her name.
Speaker 2: Well, my baby sister is named Jackie after Jackie moms Mabley. Wow,
Speaker 2: my mother named because Moms Maypley told me she recognized me.
Speaker 2: It was strange. I was the general manager of w
Speaker 2: h you are at the time. She said, come here, girl.
Speaker 2: She said what's your name? And I said it's Kathy
Speaker 2: And she said your mama named Helen. I said yes, ma'am,
Speaker 2: And she said I bought you your first bassinet because
Speaker 2: they had you sleeping in a dresser drawer. She said,
Speaker 2: get your mama on the phone. Okay, okay. I had
Speaker 2: no idea, And then she told me all these stories
Speaker 2: about how, in addition everything else, one of the leader
Speaker 2: tractions of my mother's group was a woman named Tiny Davis,
Speaker 2: world renowned trumpet player, and Tiny was a lesbian and
Speaker 2: that that Moms Mapley told me that she was the
Speaker 2: first openly, you know, a lesbian entertainer, and that you
Speaker 2: know that not only were they not supposed to have
Speaker 2: black and white people, they also were not supposed to
Speaker 2: have gay and lesbian people.
Speaker 3: Right, Okay, I think it was my raining the way
Speaker 3: I'm okay.
Speaker 2: They were really pighan years in so many different areas,
Speaker 2: and it was the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 6: And forties, Okay, so probably you know, in the in
Speaker 6: the wake of what I've been sort of going through
Speaker 6: last year in terms of After Summer Soul, a lot
Speaker 6: of people started.
Speaker 2: Which was thank you, thank you, thank you for that, thank.
Speaker 1: You God, thank you for receiving that.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Oh my goodness, no, and promoting and still
Speaker 2: talking about it regularly on all of our airwaves. That
Speaker 2: was the most magnificent piece. That was almost a significant
Speaker 2: of when they found oscarm shows films they had been
Speaker 2: buried in oh all the okay, for you to bring
Speaker 2: that to life, in my opinion, was an oscar show.
Speaker 2: So forgive me for cutting you off, but I thank
Speaker 2: you to tell you.
Speaker 1: That I'll take that compliment. I appreciate that. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: I was going to say to you that.
Speaker 6: I've just beginning so many like you know, just random
Speaker 6: archive stuff, and someone was really incredible enough to give
Speaker 6: me like almost one hundred hours of like vintage radio programs.
Speaker 6: I mean like Hal Jackson, Sid McCoy, Jacko Henderson. You
Speaker 6: know what is So here's the weird thing, the million
Speaker 6: dollar research right now, we've been I have a little
Speaker 6: pack of like.
Speaker 1: Maybe eight or nine cats that like collect these things.
Speaker 1: For the life of us. We are are searching high and.
Speaker 6: Low for either Georgie Woods's radio show or the dance
Speaker 6: show that he used to have in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: That's like thats goal to us.
Speaker 6: But I wanted to ask, like, did you have any
Speaker 6: interaction with like the first generation of syndicated radio personalities
Speaker 6: like like Jocko Henderson or Sid McCoy, any of those
Speaker 6: like golden voice gods of kind of like the fifties.
Speaker 2: No, because I was still a child, I was still
Speaker 2: fantasizing and still growing up in Omaha, Nebraska. I knew
Speaker 2: more about Johnny Carson okay, okay, and the fondas and
Speaker 2: Marlon brand Do. All of these were Omaha folks in
Speaker 2: the industry.
Speaker 6: Okay, to get into the pool, Like what year is
Speaker 6: do you consider your first professional year? Not professional year,
Speaker 6: but the year of Like I guess now, a person
Speaker 6: want to have to start as an intern and then
Speaker 6: in turn to an assistant and assistant.
Speaker 1: To sort of work your way up the ladder.
Speaker 6: What's the what's the first step that you had to
Speaker 6: take to officially plant some feet inside of that world?
Speaker 2: I started off as an owner.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's a flex.
Speaker 6: That's the greatest flex of all time. That's the show.
Speaker 1: Good night, Omaha.
Speaker 2: I dropped the bike right. Omaha's African American community has
Speaker 2: produced some of the greatest athletes of all time. Bob Gibson,
Speaker 2: one of the greatest pictures, Okay, Baseball Hall of Famer,
Speaker 2: Johnny Rogers, Heisman Trophy winner, Bob Boozer, basketball, Paul Silas.
Speaker 2: We had all of these incredible athletes, and they decided
Speaker 2: to pull their resources and take Willie Nilson off the
Speaker 2: radio and put James Brown on. So they decided that
Speaker 2: they were going to buy a radio station and create
Speaker 2: a black format. And I have always been a saver.
Speaker 2: My mother and father both instilled in me if you
Speaker 2: get a dime, you get to spend a nickel and
Speaker 2: put a nickel in At that time my cigar box
Speaker 2: when I was a child, Okay, that was my bank.
Speaker 2: And so I had my little ten thousand dollars saved
Speaker 2: when they came up with this venture, and so I invested.
Speaker 2: So my my experience was as an owner.
Speaker 6: Ten thousand, ten thousand now might be like five hundred bucks,
Speaker 6: but ten thousand then was like five hundred thousand. Now like,
Speaker 6: where did you find the patience to what did you
Speaker 6: have to sacrifice to save?
Speaker 2: My father died at forty five, okay, and my portion
Speaker 2: of the insurance was about eight thousand. Okay, So I
Speaker 2: only had about two thousand in nickels and dimes that
Speaker 2: I had saved myself. But I had ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: So I invested in this radio station. And then because
Speaker 2: I had been bitten by this radio bug as a
Speaker 2: child ko w H and Omaha, Nebraska, I went to
Speaker 2: start volunteering. My first job was one of the owners,
Speaker 2: all of us, all the owners were actually volunteering. Biggest mistake, biggest,
Speaker 2: biggest business error in my career was when I moved
Speaker 2: to Washington, d C. And I told them, I said, listen,
Speaker 2: I have this opportunity to join the faculty of the
Speaker 2: Howard University School of Communications. I don't know any d C.
Speaker 2: I have a five year old son. Would you all please,
Speaker 2: you know, buy me out. So they bought me out
Speaker 2: at the same amount that I had put in, which
Speaker 2: was a ten thousand dollars. Years later all of them
Speaker 2: made two three, four hundred thousand dollars a piece. Then
Speaker 2: they proposed the state but I didn't have any idea then,
Speaker 2: okay that that you know, the value would appreciate at
Speaker 2: that level. So they gave me my ten thousand dollars
Speaker 2: back when I moved to Washington, d C. But I
Speaker 2: started off my career in radio as an owner, not
Speaker 2: working my way up. I ended up working my way
Speaker 2: up when I was the general manager of whu R
Speaker 2: and the staff decided they wanted to union nice and
Speaker 2: I wasn't going to have it because it would have
Speaker 2: forced the students out of the facility. Okay, I was
Speaker 2: not going to allow the union to come in and
Speaker 2: deny the only reason Howard University had whu R with
Speaker 2: Stanford wh Howard university radio was for the students, and
Speaker 2: yet we had all of these professionals, many of whom
Speaker 2: were no longer employable in the industry, holding on to
Speaker 2: their positions and denying the students the opportunity to be
Speaker 2: on the air. And so they went on strike. And
Speaker 2: so when they went on strike, I told the students,
Speaker 2: it's me and you, and we went on the air,
Speaker 2: and I was trembling. That was the first time I
Speaker 2: had ever been on the air.
Speaker 3: OK.
Speaker 2: So I have these a group of teenagers and me,
Speaker 2: and we're going to keep the station on the air.
Speaker 2: Because to this day, thank god, Howard University still is
Speaker 2: a facility students can get commercial training because college radio
Speaker 2: could not suffice in getting these kids' jobs when they
Speaker 2: graduated from college. They needed to have a commercial credential
Speaker 2: on their resume.
Speaker 3: I'll say it again, still the best college radio station too.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to say it again to me in
Speaker 3: the nation.
Speaker 1: I will say it.
Speaker 6: I mean, that's that's the first, even before my own
Speaker 6: hometown started playing us, like Howard University was the early supporter,
Speaker 6: even before like our album came out.
Speaker 2: That's how I run my radio stations to this day.
Speaker 2: That that is not just about employing the people who
Speaker 2: you know, make the salaries, but it's also about creating
Speaker 2: jobs for artists, for writers, for producers, creating opportunities for
Speaker 2: them that you know, nobody else is going to afford them.
Speaker 2: This was before if black became fashionable and everybody you
Speaker 2: know decided, oh my goodness, okay, this trillion dollar you
Speaker 2: know community that we're missing out on, we're going to
Speaker 2: hop over here in the black space. But back then,
Speaker 2: you know, it was not possible. There were no crossovers. Okay,
Speaker 2: you neither got played in black radio or you did Okay,
Speaker 2: you didn't get played. And so that's that's been always
Speaker 2: a priority with my programming.
Speaker 1: Because you're an owner, maybe you can explain this to me. Okay.
Speaker 6: So when I got in the industry professionally, at least
Speaker 6: with the roots, it was like ninety.
Speaker 1: Three, And when our third album.
Speaker 6: Came out in ninety six, ninety six, ninety seven, one
Speaker 6: of our radio promotion guys at the label was trying
Speaker 6: to explain to me, something new is happening at radio
Speaker 6: that's going to make it harder for us to get
Speaker 6: you guys on radio. And you know the thing that
Speaker 6: they were saying, explaining to me was was basically that.
Speaker 6: Whereas when we used to visit radio stations in ninety three,
Speaker 6: ninety four, ninety five, personalities on the air had control
Speaker 6: of what they played. So they were like they were
Speaker 6: the taste makers. If hey, I know about this cool
Speaker 6: group from Philadelphia, you guys should hear them, and they
Speaker 6: played the record, Whereas now we were coming to radio
Speaker 6: stations and things were like pre programmed almost weeks in
Speaker 6: advance before you even get there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they consolidated. What they did was limit access to artists.
Speaker 2: That's the reason you know we're a very unique corporation,
Speaker 2: Because yeah, we're very unique corporation because my air personalities
Speaker 2: still have control over their dott Simpson, I would never
Speaker 2: in soul the Donnie Simpson by telling him what to play. Okay,
Speaker 2: all right, If Donnie Simpson didn't know what to play,
Speaker 2: then he shouldn't be on the radio, Okay. Nannie Simpson
Speaker 2: controls his playlist, Russ Park controls his plist. Ricky Smiley.
Speaker 2: Now we give them some assistance because with automation and things,
Speaker 2: everything's got to be in the computer. Okay. But also
Speaker 2: I have always believed that, and I think This was
Speaker 2: my experience at Howard University when I was the general
Speaker 2: manager of w h u R. I think that, you know,
Speaker 2: some of the major corporations use it as an excuse
Speaker 2: to avoid Paola that they said that, you know, if
Speaker 2: you control the playlist corporately, then you eliminate the Okay. Well,
Speaker 2: over the years, I have watched a lot of people
Speaker 2: figure out how to get around okay, okay, the controlled playlist,
Speaker 2: and the tragedy is that they limited, you know, like
Speaker 2: in Atlanta. When I realized how popular the music of
Speaker 2: Atlanta was and how unique it was to Atlanta. Okay,
Speaker 2: when I recognized Go Go as being like the national
Speaker 2: anthem of Washington.
Speaker 7: D C.
Speaker 2: Baltimore House exactly, Baltimore, Yeah, exactly, I realized that this
Speaker 2: isn't something that could be controlled corporately. That and the
Speaker 2: other thing that bothered me very much is is I've
Speaker 2: always had an open door policy. The artist can always
Speaker 2: get to me, my staff can always get to me.
Speaker 2: And when I was hearing that, you know, they won't
Speaker 2: play me because I'm local, they won't play me because
Speaker 2: I don't have representation. They won't play me for this
Speaker 2: reason or that reason. You know, I felt an obligation
Speaker 2: to try to be of assistance to individuals, particularly on
Speaker 2: the local level. Now do we have a system now
Speaker 2: in place, Yes, because in additionary now else what has
Speaker 2: happened is technology. We're able to test the songs immediately
Speaker 2: for you, okay. And I think that oftentimes we find
Speaker 2: ourselves in opposition to what the label wants to release
Speaker 2: as opposed to what our audience tells us they want
Speaker 2: to hear. And so we still have a control system,
Speaker 2: the quasi control system. But at the same time, my
Speaker 2: air personalities have the flexibility because I paid them a
Speaker 2: lot of money, and a lot of that money is
Speaker 2: paid to them because of their knowledge and their experience
Speaker 2: and their expertise. I want them to be aware of what,
Speaker 2: you know, the trends are in the clubs, if we're
Speaker 2: if it's if you're on my hip hop format. I
Speaker 2: want them to really help resurrect some of these classic
Speaker 2: R and B X that we're not for us okay.
Speaker 2: If we had not really conceptualized you know, adult can temporary,
Speaker 2: all right, some of these artists would still be working
Speaker 2: as sales clerks somewhere as opposed to performing. I have
Speaker 2: always been being in business a lot more than just
Speaker 2: making money for the business. I was taught. My family
Speaker 2: has a mantra, which is that in order for you
Speaker 2: to do well in your life, you must first do
Speaker 2: good for other people. And I've always wanted to do
Speaker 2: good because I can't tell you how many nights my mama,
Speaker 2: as a professional musician, had to feed us scrambled eggs
Speaker 2: for dinner because we couldn't afford because some promoter hadn't
Speaker 2: paid her, or some gig hadn't worked. So I understood
Speaker 2: how life was hard for artists. And my mama was
Speaker 2: at top of the game, okay, and she still wasn't
Speaker 2: making money all right, because she was playing swing. And
Speaker 2: so I've always had this commitment with my format. The
Speaker 2: other stations have a lot more resources. They're a lot
Speaker 2: larger than us. You know, we're big or black owned media.
Speaker 2: We're the biggest in black owned media, but compared to
Speaker 2: you know what used to be Clear Channel, which started
Speaker 2: the same year as Radio One, okay, with lowry mains.
Speaker 2: But when you look look at these major corporations that
Speaker 2: are now in the black space, even with their control
Speaker 2: of the format, they still have some of the same
Speaker 2: problems they had before they controlled it. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, because of their size, they're still able to
Speaker 2: have a relationship with the artists. I want to have
Speaker 2: more than a relationship with an artist. I want to
Speaker 2: be able to tell the story of the first time
Speaker 2: I played John Legend. His name was John Steve and okay,
Speaker 2: all right, and he brought me ten cassette tapes that
Speaker 2: he had produced himself with a magic marker, and when
Speaker 2: he was selling them at ten dollars piece that I
Speaker 2: went up to him and I said, young man, I'd
Speaker 2: like to buy all ten and he said, oh no, ma'am.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I can't suwm to you because I need
Speaker 2: to try to get these disc jockeys to listen. I said, well,
Speaker 2: I know this jockey say to be your kid and
Speaker 2: tell me.
Speaker 1: Hard that's that's gas money to get to the next show.
Speaker 6: And I'm sorry, I know this is the less I talk.
Speaker 2: Because I'm paid. I will get a condition off of paid.
Speaker 2: I represented him.
Speaker 5: Now, finally the respect I deserve after all these years.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Thank you, You're welcome.
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask because you mentioned moving to d C,
Speaker 3: but I want you to talk about moving to d C.
Speaker 3: I believe you said it was because of that opportunity
Speaker 3: at hu are.
Speaker 2: No, it was actually the opportunity to be on the
Speaker 2: faculty in the first school of Communications.
Speaker 3: Okay, So talk about moving to DC and the difference
Speaker 3: of culture and what you saw, and don't get a
Speaker 3: twisted you must have fell in love because you've never left.
Speaker 3: Can you talk about that.
Speaker 2: I grew up in an environment where they were only
Speaker 2: white folks and black folks and Native Americans. I never
Speaker 2: saw an Asian. I never saw anyone a Hispanic Latino.
Speaker 2: I never saw a foreigner. Okay. Growing up in Omaha, Nebraska,
Speaker 2: it was strictly black folks, white folks, and our Native
Speaker 2: American brothers and sisters were on reservations. When I got
Speaker 2: to DC, I saw black excellence. I used to write
Speaker 2: back home and say that my eyes were tired, my
Speaker 2: eyeballs were because I was just like an awe. I
Speaker 2: was like a kid. I had never seen black doctors,
Speaker 2: black lawyers, black everything. Howard University was like to me
Speaker 2: going to heaven. I could not believe. Okay, I just
Speaker 2: because I had never ever experienced this in my growing up.
Speaker 2: Because by the time I was in school, my mother's
Speaker 2: band had the men had come back from the war,
Speaker 2: so her all female band was never not no longer
Speaker 2: in demand, and so my mama went and became a nurse.
Speaker 2: So when I came to Howard, I was part of
Speaker 2: the very first faculty that Tony Brown put together and
Speaker 2: created the School of Communications around the radio station. They
Speaker 2: had the radio station before.
Speaker 3: They had so many to.
Speaker 2: Tony Brown. Who has Tony Brown's journal still Brown, Yes.
Speaker 1: Shout out Tony Brown.
Speaker 6: At the age of twelve, when I went to the
Speaker 6: Democratic National committing Kansas City, gave me two tickets to
Speaker 6: the Victory Tour because the Jackson's opened the Victory Tour
Speaker 6: in Kansas City. Wow, just randomly gave me two And
Speaker 6: those are hard tickets to get. I love Tony Brown
Speaker 6: just for that. I forgot about Tony Brown.
Speaker 2: That's empired me because the University of Nebraska did not
Speaker 2: have a Black studies department because it's very conservative okay
Speaker 2: in Nebraska. But we had a Black Studies committee and
Speaker 2: I was the chairperson of the Black Studies Committee, and
Speaker 2: we would bring Tony Brown to Omaha to speak all
Speaker 2: of the time. So when doctor James Cheek offered him
Speaker 2: the position of the first dean and asked him to
Speaker 2: create the School of Communications. Tony said, would you like
Speaker 2: to come and be part of our faculty? And at
Speaker 2: that time, again I was elated. Quincy Jones was on
Speaker 2: the faculty stand Latham was on the faculty. Velvet Van
Speaker 2: People's was on the faculty. Oh, yes, we had a
Speaker 2: faculty then.
Speaker 3: Okay, oh I'm Christmas parties.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I mean. It was unbelievable. And my first
Speaker 2: assignment was a communications conference. And at that communications conference,
Speaker 2: nobody could attend the Communications Conference conference from Corporate America
Speaker 2: and the entertainment industry unless you had guaranteed in writing
Speaker 2: to Tony Brown and myself that you would hire at
Speaker 2: least two students. We have students from all the HBCUs
Speaker 2: come and that very first year, that very first conference,
Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy two students of color got jobs
Speaker 2: in the industry because of Tony Brown. Tony Brown said,
Speaker 2: we don't need for you all to come to window
Speaker 2: dress if you're going to come and meet with these
Speaker 2: students from around the country. So that was our first
Speaker 2: kickoff to the School of Communications at Howard.
Speaker 3: Which the school which is now named the Kathy Hughes
Speaker 3: school Latin.
Speaker 6: Do you have a listing of like just some of
Speaker 6: the who's who of personalities that have sort of just
Speaker 6: come through your.
Speaker 2: It's amazing to me. It's amazing to me as you age,
Speaker 2: because you know your life and I still work, so
Speaker 2: it keeps, you know, it keeps, you know, going on.
Speaker 2: But no, it's not a who's who's list. And it's
Speaker 2: so amazing to me when the people come up to
Speaker 2: me and tell me stories about you know, you gave
Speaker 2: me my first opportunity, or you played my record. Okay,
Speaker 2: you did this, Okay, are you open this door? You
Speaker 2: you know you booked me. The first time I booked
Speaker 2: Earth Winning Fire, I had a total of twenty people
Speaker 2: in the Crampton Auditorium and I went and stood on
Speaker 2: the corner of Georgia Avenue at the entrance to Howard
Speaker 2: and bade people to come in. And Jessica Clees was
Speaker 2: the lead singer, not Philip Bailey. Okay, I remember.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: And when I see Verdean Verde, he was there, you know.
Speaker 2: He said to me, says to me all the time,
Speaker 2: this is the lady who got us started, because she
Speaker 2: went out there on the corner and bagged people to
Speaker 2: come in. And when I tell people that the lead
Speaker 2: singer for earth Winding Fire was Jessica Cleves, they're like,
Speaker 2: what okay, No, okay, you know this okay? And like
Speaker 2: I said, I had twenty people, but Jim Brown, Okay.
Speaker 2: Jim Brown was involved with Jessica Cleves and he had
Speaker 2: put money, he had given more recite money to start
Speaker 2: this group called earth Winding Fire. All right, and my
Speaker 2: uncle were very good friends in Los Angeles, and so
Speaker 2: my uncle had hooked him up with me, and so
Speaker 2: he had brought me this group called earth Winding Fire. Okay,
Speaker 2: So I went on the We went on the radio
Speaker 2: and told people to come. Nobody had heard him. Nobody came,
Speaker 2: and so I think before the evening was over, I
Speaker 2: might have gotten forty people in there to hear the
Speaker 2: mat Crampton Auditorium. Car Vitorium is a fifteen seat hundred
Speaker 2: seat venue.
Speaker 1: Right, everyone gets this start. So were was there an
Speaker 1: act that was a hard sell?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 6: Did you get an awkward prince back in like nineteen
Speaker 6: seventy eight when he wasn't ready yet?
Speaker 2: Like listen, I can't tell you how many battles I
Speaker 2: fought for Prince because I discovered Prince when he was
Speaker 2: like thirteen or fourteen years old, and people thought he
Speaker 2: was outscene was the word that they used to describe,
Speaker 2: you know, And I was like, this boy's a musical genius.
Speaker 2: This kid is unbelievable. He pays every instrument there is.
Speaker 2: What are you talking about outseeing?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: His lyrics. Remember, music and fashion have gone through periods
Speaker 2: where there was serious censorship and okay, and certain things
Speaker 2: weren't allowed, and you know, lyrics had to become a
Speaker 2: camouflage like plus the Magic Dragon was about weed. Okay, okay,
Speaker 2: you know you had to camouflage, you had to have
Speaker 2: you know, the double meaning. But so many but I
Speaker 2: guess that probably the John Stephens story is the biggest
Speaker 2: in terms because his accomplishments and still he's he's still young, okay, Okay.
Speaker 2: Nobody knows where he will end up because he's been
Speaker 2: like a rocket ship with so many various groups over
Speaker 2: the years. But one of the things that I've been
Speaker 2: proud is of, quite frankly, was the assistance that we
Speaker 2: did provide for the do wop groups and for the
Speaker 2: oldies but goodies as they call them, because so many
Speaker 2: of these individuals were starving, okay, all right, I mean
Speaker 2: they loved the art, they loved the music, but they
Speaker 2: couldn't work any longer, and disco just killed so many
Speaker 2: of them off. And it was not until we during
Speaker 2: that same era, came up with this concept of you know,
Speaker 2: basically oldies, but we you know, put more sophisticated titles
Speaker 2: to it, dealt contemporary.
Speaker 6: Okay, so you help us sure in like the nostalgia
Speaker 6: era or.
Speaker 3: The urban ac category. I mean I think she's saying
Speaker 3: that they created the urban acn category.
Speaker 2: No question, okay, and it was to really provide platforms
Speaker 2: we have this had this event for years until it
Speaker 2: became too big, quite frankly for us to handle. I
Speaker 2: admired the fact that Philadelphia still is able to do.
Speaker 2: There's called the Stone Soul Picnic. And the Stone Soul
Speaker 2: Picnic was only these old groups that you know, the
Speaker 2: Ohio players, okay, all these groups that had been dormant. Okay.
Speaker 2: Nobody was buying them, nobody was sampling them, okay, nobody
Speaker 2: was recognizing them for their their brilliance, and uh, we
Speaker 2: started resurrecting them, okay. And I kind of stumbled into
Speaker 2: it after I had created the Quiet Storm because the
Speaker 2: Quiet Storm was love music. Love was bad ballots, and
Speaker 2: I had to really reach back, all right to eras
Speaker 2: where lyrics told stories.
Speaker 3: You gotta tell that story. You need to tell the
Speaker 3: Quiet Storm story.
Speaker 5: Where's the name from?
Speaker 6: Explain to us who Melvin Lindsay was and how you
Speaker 6: guys invented. You guys basically helped triple the population.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you that. The reason, the main reason
Speaker 2: I want to write my book is because when W. H. U. R.
Speaker 2: Celebrated his anniversary, there were several inaccurate accountings of the
Speaker 2: Quiet Storm. Number One, Melvin Lindsay was not the originator.
Speaker 2: Melvin Lindsay was my third whoa not my first? He
Speaker 2: was my third, okay? Whoa all right? Schools was a
Speaker 2: kid named Don Roberts who broke my heart because he
Speaker 2: was the most talented of my first three. But he
Speaker 2: was good looking, and he said to me, I got
Speaker 2: a for television missus Lincoln's okay, because I wasn't even
Speaker 2: married to do even he said, I don't want to
Speaker 2: be in at a radio studio where no one could
Speaker 2: see me. Sure not went on to be a big
Speaker 2: time anchor in Baltimore. Maryland, Okay, Don Robert my first.
Speaker 2: My second was a young man named Jack Schuler. Jack
Speaker 2: Schuler was Melvin Lindsey's best friend. Melvin Lindsey was my
Speaker 2: intern that I paid out of my pocket. He picked
Speaker 2: my son up from school. He came because Howard said
Speaker 2: that they didn't have a budget for interns and I
Speaker 2: needed some of the students to actually be in a
Speaker 2: position to earn some money. So Jack Schuler was vomiting
Speaker 2: literally after each show or doing the show. He was
Speaker 2: so nervous, he was trembling. He said, please don't make
Speaker 2: me do this. No more, Miss liggoans. Please please Melvin
Speaker 2: to do it, Melvin to do it. So Melvin told
Speaker 2: me he would do the Quiet Storm if I didn't
Speaker 2: make him up. Open the microphone, so if there were
Speaker 2: any early tapes that looking for it, yeah, he would
Speaker 2: say good evening and welcome to the Quiet Storm. The
Speaker 2: next time you would hear Melvin Lindsay's voice, he would say,
Speaker 2: thank you for listening to the Quiet Storm. I'm Melvin Lindsay.
Speaker 2: There was nothing in between from Melvine except the music.
Speaker 2: Great taste in music. It was my private music collection
Speaker 2: and I started it out on Saturday night and then
Speaker 2: on Sunday, and then I decided that it was the
Speaker 2: conception of the Quiet Storm was for a senior to
Speaker 2: be chosen by the faculty, two seniors, in fact, one
Speaker 2: for each semester, to give them a commercial experience on
Speaker 2: their resume. Okay. It was never for one person to
Speaker 2: host the show. It was never supported. It was supposed
Speaker 2: to be a rotation opportunity. The closest I came to
Speaker 2: it was Milton Allen, who was married to Pat Prescott
Speaker 2: in La Sheila Eldritch and Franklin. Those were my three, Okay,
Speaker 2: students that I was able to rotate. Okay, nobody else rotated. Okay.
Speaker 2: People came and got stuck, including Melbourne. Well, Melvin did
Speaker 2: so good that kys Kiss told him that they would
Speaker 2: give him an opportunity if he would come and be
Speaker 2: on the air at Kiss. So Melvin walks into my office.
Speaker 2: Now this is like I told you, he said, Jim Tern,
Speaker 2: I have literally supported him. Okay. His parents would say
Speaker 2: to him, well, you need to ask miss Liggans first
Speaker 2: before you do so. And so I had picked his
Speaker 2: classes for him, the whole nine yards. He tells me
Speaker 2: on a Friday that he's got an offer, and he's
Speaker 2: going to work at Kiss and I'm thinking he's somebody
Speaker 2: after graduation and all this, And I said, when he
Speaker 2: said Monday, I was so irate. I told him to
Speaker 2: get out of my office. Hey, yes, So Dewey Hughes,
Speaker 2: who at that time had fourteen Emmys for his productions
Speaker 2: at the rcity NBC fourteen mm's okay, he created youth News,
Speaker 2: he created music videos as quiet as Kep. Anyway, Dewey
Speaker 2: comes to my office and he tells me that it's
Speaker 2: a setup, that NBC just wanted Melvin off the air,
Speaker 2: and that they had him in the mill room and
Speaker 2: would I please bring him back? And I said bring
Speaker 2: him back, and he said, let me take you to
Speaker 2: dinner and talk to you about this. Well ultimately doing,
Speaker 2: and I got married, and Melvin came back. Okay, And
Speaker 2: years later okay there and years later I never well forget.
Speaker 2: We were at this big affair and Melvin was being
Speaker 2: honored and I was in the audience with Dewey and
Speaker 2: Melvin didn't acknowledge the thing that was even in the audience,
Speaker 2: and Dewey had torn his achilles, attended to play a
Speaker 2: basketball he was on crutches. He went up to the
Speaker 2: head table ones he grabbed Melvin Lindsay around the neck
Speaker 2: and he said, I'm married because of you, Okay, and
Speaker 2: then we went back to the microphone. Well, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2: I didn't know she was here. He grabbed him right
Speaker 2: in front of the whole room. It was hilarious because
Speaker 2: that's how Juey and I ended up getting married. The
Speaker 2: reason my name is Kathy Hughes.
Speaker 6: How did you get Melvin out of his shyness? Because
Speaker 6: I didn't know Melvin Lindsay as a radio personality. I
Speaker 6: knew him as when we first got cable. I knew
Speaker 6: Melvin Lindsay as a news personality. So he was like
Speaker 6: Brian gumbel Is and I'm like, wait a minute, you
Speaker 6: were a quiet storm.
Speaker 3: Guy in so sexy and I was still young to
Speaker 3: even know it.
Speaker 1: So oh yes, I was like, so how did you?
Speaker 3: And did the song come upo the show?
Speaker 2: I cannot take full credit for getting him out of
Speaker 2: his shell. Number one Meloyn was introduced to the gay
Speaker 2: lifestyle by I also had the distinction of hiring the
Speaker 2: first openly gay air personality, Robin Holden Washington d C.
Speaker 2: Robin Colden. I had to talk in code back in
Speaker 2: those days. She said, the children will be meeting this
Speaker 2: Friday night and so and so she was talking code
Speaker 2: and Howard University was but my rear end, Okay, are
Speaker 2: you out of your mind?
Speaker 1: Conservative?
Speaker 2: Okay, executive, conservative, homophobic, all of that, okay, and UH
Speaker 2: at the same time, I'm getting all these rave reviews
Speaker 2: from the UH because d C, as quiet as it's kept, okay,
Speaker 2: is a big gay and lesbian city, all right, okay,
Speaker 2: all right, okay for many many decades and so okay.
Speaker 2: So Robin was and Robin was an incredible air personality,
Speaker 2: incredible air personality, all right. And she helped Melvin come
Speaker 2: out of his shell because I think that she made
Speaker 2: him comfortable with his sexuality. She made him feel that
Speaker 2: it was okay because Melvin was very closeted at that time,
Speaker 2: which contributed to his Okay, he was engaged. I bought
Speaker 2: the engagement ring for a young lady, and she left
Speaker 2: him because she recognized that he wasn't comfortable with her.
Speaker 2: But during those times when Melvin was quiet and withdrawn
Speaker 2: and went to open the microphone, his show was almost
Speaker 2: like a black musac. And so it grew in popularity.
Speaker 2: We didn't have any commercials because it was a student shift, okay,
Speaker 2: so they popular. We became number one in a matter
Speaker 2: of like eighteen months. We went from no listeners to
Speaker 2: being number one in the market because Melvin wouldn't open
Speaker 2: the mic and I had no commercials, So it was
Speaker 2: NonStop love music. Wow Okay, okay, okay music the theme
Speaker 2: of Philly International. There's a message in our music, okay.
Speaker 2: We believed in that, and the message was one of
Speaker 2: love and affection and attention. And so Melvin blossomed and
Speaker 2: went on to become an incredible personality, incredible, He grew
Speaker 2: into himself, he got comfortable with himself. Deanna Williams was
Speaker 2: very much a part of his growth and development, okay,
Speaker 2: because he realized that he could be loved regardless of, okay,
Speaker 2: his sexuality, his sexual preference had no bearing on his talent.
Speaker 2: And he really really really blossomed and became this incredible,
Speaker 2: incredible television and radio personality and died too soon, too early,
Speaker 2: and so age took him away way too soon.
Speaker 3: He was he was our first, right like I felt
Speaker 3: like he was our first major was.
Speaker 2: It just it just hurts me to my heart to
Speaker 2: think what he could have been, what he could have
Speaker 2: done had he not been discriminated against, had he not
Speaker 2: been unable to be who he really was, because talent
Speaker 2: personality galore. And once it started coming out, it was
Speaker 2: only out for a short period of time, and then
Speaker 2: he was gone.
Speaker 3: He still needs to be in the Radio Hall of
Speaker 3: Fame somewhere.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely deserved it. He became my most popular, but
Speaker 2: the most popular of all the hosts of the kliss
Speaker 2: Starm was Von Harper in New York. Von Harper, let's.
Speaker 3: Talk about the franchising, the franchising of the Quiet Storm. Then, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
Speaker 2: Howard wouldn't let me franchise it. They wouldn't let me
Speaker 2: license it. And at one time it was on there
Speaker 2: were stations that actually called themselves the Quiet Storm station.
Speaker 2: Howard could have supported not just the School of Communications,
Speaker 2: they could have supported the entire school off just licensing.
Speaker 3: Yes, that sounds like what the tek.
Speaker 2: The reason I left Howard University was I realized that
Speaker 2: they had taken a billion dollar baby that God had
Speaker 2: given me, you know, uh, the motherhood of Okay that
Speaker 2: I had birthed a billion dollar baby for Howard University,
Speaker 2: and they had thrown the baby the bath water and
Speaker 2: me out of window. And so I resigned because I
Speaker 2: resigned telling Doctor Cheek that I did not want to
Speaker 2: miss the next billion dollar baby they I might impregnate
Speaker 2: me with. I would not allow anyone else to be
Speaker 2: in charge of my destiny. And that's what Radio One became.
Speaker 2: They became that. Okay, that that baby that God once
Speaker 2: again blessed me with. Because before Howard they persecuted me.
Speaker 2: They punished me for the quiet Storm.
Speaker 1: Really why terribly.
Speaker 2: I was very very very provocative in my ye my
Speaker 2: days at Howard University. I stood up for the students.
Speaker 2: I you know, opened doors and it wasn't Howard's fault, HBCUs.
Speaker 2: Only you know, recently realized that education is a business.
Speaker 2: You have to make money at it, okay. And all
Speaker 2: this to be announced, books, not being in classrooms, not
Speaker 2: being a signed, having to stand in line for hours
Speaker 2: to register, Okay, all of that, that's that's part of
Speaker 2: the expert.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Howard was very good to me. Howard sent me to
Speaker 2: Harvard University for six weeks to learn broadcast management because
Speaker 2: when they told me they wanted to put me in
Speaker 2: the job as general manager first as sales manager. I said,
Speaker 2: I don't know how to do it, and they said, well,
Speaker 2: you know, you know some of the basics. And they
Speaker 2: paid my tuition to the business school at that time
Speaker 2: they had a six week course called Broadcast Management.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: And then they paid my way for a two week
Speaker 2: course at the University of Chicago called Psychographic Programming. That's
Speaker 2: when I came back and created the Quiet Storm. So
Speaker 2: both times, so you know, they say that, you know,
Speaker 2: I was their best student that never matriculated at Howard University,
Speaker 2: but Howard invested in me quite seriously. I would not be,
Speaker 2: you know, professionally who I am or what I do
Speaker 2: now were it not for university. And so it was
Speaker 2: easy for me. When I found out that the School
Speaker 2: of Communications was on you know, in a danger of
Speaker 2: not losing its accreditation and perhaps having to close that,
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, no, that cannot happen. I can't
Speaker 2: allow that to happen because they produced me. Okay, even
Speaker 2: though I was never a student. Okay, Howard University produced
Speaker 2: who I am professionally. You know. I think that that
Speaker 2: over the years that some of the things that I
Speaker 2: wanted for the students and for the university have come
Speaker 2: to fruition, and for that I'm eternally grateful.
Speaker 6: I always wanted to know, Like, Okay, in my mind,
Speaker 6: to just establish one radio station seems like a task,
Speaker 6: But I mean, you had or have over fifty of
Speaker 6: these radio stations. So I guess my two part question
Speaker 6: is One, how taxing is it to have eyes? Because
Speaker 6: I mean, you seem like a personable figure in terms
Speaker 6: of you probably know what works. You know your Atlanta staff, like,
Speaker 6: you probably know your Dallas staff the probably the way
Speaker 6: that you know your Chicago people versus your Philly Like
Speaker 6: I'm certain that you have to have some sort of
Speaker 6: personal relationships with all of these conglomerates.
Speaker 1: One, why do you care? Two? How taxing is it
Speaker 1: to run an empire?
Speaker 2: It's a long way you get the empire.
Speaker 6: Okay, you're saying that it's a long way from an empire.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna let you do this mom Fries talk. But
Speaker 6: I'm just saying that, Okay, whoever is like above you, like,
Speaker 6: what do you what are you comparing yourself to?
Speaker 3: Is?
Speaker 6: For me, it's not It's not quantity more than it's
Speaker 6: the quality.
Speaker 2: We do it differently. We do it differently. But let
Speaker 2: me say to you, Yeah, behind my back, they call
Speaker 2: me dig Mama because I have some interesting rules, like
Speaker 2: you can attest.
Speaker 1: To tell us stories, drop in.
Speaker 3: That's what I'll say. She knows, she knows that every
Speaker 3: station when they get word that miss h might be
Speaker 3: coming to town, there's a clean.
Speaker 1: Up mama coming home.
Speaker 2: There are just certain rules that I live by. One
Speaker 2: is that many many years ago, I had an opportunity
Speaker 2: to work for Inner City Broadcasting. I put their station
Speaker 2: on the air UH in Detroit. It was LBS. Okay,
Speaker 2: it was you know, BLS reconfigured, and there was an
Speaker 2: with an individual who called a member of the staff
Speaker 2: a dumb bitch to her face, and I heard it
Speaker 2: and I quit. There are just certain things that I
Speaker 2: just will not tolerate. One of them is any of
Speaker 2: my employees being cursed at, because to me, it defeats
Speaker 2: the ability to get the best out of them. When
Speaker 2: somebody is cursed at, particularly by a superior, they're sitting down, Okay,
Speaker 2: you're not going to get whatever caused you to curse
Speaker 2: them out, you know, curse at them or call them
Speaker 2: out of their name, you've defeated the purpose. And so
Speaker 2: as much as I cursed at home, I don't allow
Speaker 2: it in my facilities. Okay, there's certain other things I
Speaker 2: didn't don't allow. Speaking of b LS, one day I
Speaker 2: was going to surprise Wendy Williams, who started with me.
Speaker 2: Wendy Williams is one individuals had her very first job
Speaker 2: with me, and she was interviewing a snoop and I
Speaker 2: could smell the weed on the first floor before I
Speaker 2: got on the elevator going up. Okay, I knew snoop
Speaker 2: was on the air. Okay, and it's funny, he said.
Speaker 2: Wendy Williams said, oh, I just got word that Miss
Speaker 2: Hughes is coming out in the building. And this snoop said, oh,
Speaker 2: I got to put this joint out because she don't
Speaker 2: allow no smoking up her facilities. Okay, all right, And
Speaker 2: so when he said, well, this is not her facility,
Speaker 2: this is Inner City, he said, is miss Hughes is here?
Speaker 2: I got to put it out, Okay, because the FCC
Speaker 2: those few black owners. I was not going to allow
Speaker 2: my staff to shoot themselves and deprive themselves of an
Speaker 2: opportunity by getting me and them in trouble with the FCC,
Speaker 2: so certain things I just prohibited. It kind of gave
Speaker 2: me the reputation of being big mama. And okay, I
Speaker 2: believe in hugging. I believe that if I know you
Speaker 2: on medication, I'm an HR nightmare. Okay, my HR apartment. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm an HR nightmare. Because if I know that you're
Speaker 2: on meds and back to peculiar you're up in the station,
Speaker 2: I'm will pull you aside and ask you did you
Speaker 2: forget to take your meds that morning? Because I don't
Speaker 2: want you to blow your career. I don't want you
Speaker 2: abusing the people who may work for you. I don't
Speaker 2: want to say three okay, all right, to know that
Speaker 2: you okay, it's important for me to know that. Okay,
Speaker 2: I don't like. I don't like how long you've been depressed. Now, okay,
Speaker 2: I won't think that you need to talk to somebody.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna recommend a good counselor, and then I'm
Speaker 2: gonna check and see did you follow up and call
Speaker 2: this person where I gave you a gift certificate. I
Speaker 2: was forever giving out gift certificates to go talk to somebody.
Speaker 3: Okay, it's literally like working for your auntie.
Speaker 6: Okay, So for you, of course, I would think that
Speaker 6: having good numbers is good news as far as like
Speaker 6: the ratings and whatnot. I can also imagine for you
Speaker 6: it is. It could be concerning when you hire personalities
Speaker 6: that sort of grow in stature.
Speaker 1: So how do you.
Speaker 6: Immediately not prepare, but how do you handle when you
Speaker 6: have a media personality that works for one of your
Speaker 6: stations that seems to be growing and growing.
Speaker 1: And you might like if they decide to go rogue?
Speaker 6: I mean I never knew, like how like, was Wendy
Speaker 6: just allowed to do whatever she wanted to do carte blanche?
Speaker 6: Or was it always like she just operated and was like,
Speaker 6: let me suffer the consequences later if I if I start,
Speaker 6: you know, burning bridges of the artists that I talk about,
Speaker 6: but she still gets the numbers, Like, how do you handle, like,
Speaker 6: is it a nightmare when your artists, when your personalities
Speaker 6: get bigger than you planned on them for being at
Speaker 6: least effective for the radio station?
Speaker 1: I hope, I asked that question would.
Speaker 2: Be as big as they can possibly be. But most important, well,
Speaker 2: wasn't that bad.
Speaker 1: Business for you?
Speaker 6: Because when it comes to renegotiating the contract, or you know,
Speaker 6: someone tries to poach them and take them away. Hey, Oprah, Whenfrey,
Speaker 6: we heard you doing weather on this thing? How would
Speaker 6: you like your own show?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: How do you handle that situation?
Speaker 2: Listen? One of my very favorite personalities of all time
Speaker 2: a brother named Jerry Bledsoe. Jerry Bledsoe worked for me
Speaker 2: both at Radio one and at w h u R,
Speaker 2: but when he got an opportunity to double his salary,
Speaker 2: I helped negotiate that contract for him. You can't get
Speaker 2: too big in my book, the bigger to me, rising
Speaker 2: water lifts all both. Okay, I want you to get big.
Speaker 2: I also want you to maintain respect. Okay. Respect is
Speaker 2: very important to me. And the Wendy's biopic was so inaccurate.
Speaker 2: She accused Dianna Williams of firing her. Deanna wasn't even there, okay,
Speaker 2: so Dianna could not have done what Wendy said. I've
Speaker 2: never smoked in any of my facilities. And I used
Speaker 2: to smoke cigarettes packa day, girl, you know, but I've
Speaker 2: never smoked in any of my facilities because most facilities,
Speaker 2: because you know, it's radio, it's it's you know, confined
Speaker 2: and they stink after they smoke. Okay, the smoke gets
Speaker 2: in there. So I never spoke. Yeah, And so you know,
Speaker 2: the true Wendy's story was that I knew that Wendy
Speaker 2: had a problem because one evening I had to pay
Speaker 2: she was being held hostage by her dealer and I
Speaker 2: had to pay to get her release to come to work.
Speaker 2: And I was very concerned, well being she was young.
Speaker 2: That was her first big market, you know, radio job,
Speaker 2: and she passed out on the air. The reason Wyndy
Speaker 2: and I party company is she literally passed out on
Speaker 2: the air, and the record back in those days, we
Speaker 2: were paying you know, LPs. It was skipping and I
Speaker 2: only lived like three four minutes from the station, and
Speaker 2: I ran in there and she was literally passed out,
Speaker 2: and we got her you know, medical care, the rescue
Speaker 2: squad came and everything, and we then you know, helped
Speaker 2: her move on to a different position and you know,
Speaker 2: a different market. She came back to work for me
Speaker 2: many years later. Then, even after her biopic, she requested
Speaker 2: that we'd be a second window on her television show.
Speaker 2: So we're running her television show on CLEOTV. My second
Speaker 2: network was Yeah, exactly. So Wendy's issue was not her
Speaker 2: getting too big. Wendy's issue was the demon that she
Speaker 2: couldn't overcome, couldn't fight, that she couldn't win, win against.
Speaker 2: And so many of us have, you know, talent, but
Speaker 2: we also have a self destructive entity to our personality. Okay,
Speaker 2: And that's okay, that's what Wendy had, you know. I mean,
Speaker 2: Tom Joyner at one time was the biggest their personality.
Speaker 2: The only person bigger than him was Howard Stern, and
Speaker 2: that was because Howard Stern was on white stations and
Speaker 2: there were a lot more white stations. Tom Joyner was
Speaker 2: on one hundred and twenty seven radio stations, of which
Speaker 2: he was number one in eighty plus of votes. Oh okay, okay,
Speaker 2: never an issue. Never once wanted care him not to
Speaker 2: continue to grow. Ricky Smiley now is I'm delighting and
Speaker 2: how he's growing. Donnie Simpson came back, okay, to radio
Speaker 2: to work for us, so it's not an issue of them.
Speaker 2: And yeah, contract negotiations always are tough. But when you
Speaker 2: run your company the way we run ours, which is
Speaker 2: very family oriented, even with HR and all of the rest,
Speaker 2: then we don't have the same type of contract negotiations
Speaker 2: that you would have perhaps at an iHeart or someplace else. Okay,
Speaker 2: because we're quite transparent with our people. This is how
Speaker 2: much money we make off your show, this is what
Speaker 2: your ratings look like, and this is how much we
Speaker 2: can afford to pay you. Okay. I probably have againness
Speaker 2: world book record of people who have worked for me,
Speaker 2: who have gotten fired, who have quit, who have come
Speaker 2: back more times. Okay, one of them on this call, right,
Speaker 2: you raised, all right, come back many many, many times,
Speaker 2: and some.
Speaker 1: Of them you know, many times.
Speaker 2: But but I just happen to think that we all
Speaker 2: grow and we changed with life an age and experiences,
Speaker 2: and I think just because we might have messed up
Speaker 2: at one time, you know, I was hopeful that Wendy
Speaker 2: would be able to make a comeback, but I, you know,
Speaker 2: have been kind of doubtful now that that will happen
Speaker 2: because I think that her health is not being as
Speaker 2: responsible as she would need it to be for, you know,
Speaker 2: have a comeback. And Sherry is doing so good on
Speaker 2: that show, you know, and he comes, you know, off
Speaker 2: our network. She was on with Tom Joiner for all
Speaker 2: these years.
Speaker 3: Underwell was a black Republican on Tom Jordan's show. First
Speaker 3: she was just did a feature.
Speaker 1: Okay, wow, whoa.
Speaker 2: And so the only one that I really had an
Speaker 2: issue with. And now he's back. He's on my Atlanta station,
Speaker 2: Steve Harvey and talking about Okay, Steve and I party.
Speaker 2: It was the best thing that ever happened to Steve,
Speaker 2: and asked him to become the great LA. People know
Speaker 2: who Steve Harvey is because of my company. He did
Speaker 2: my morning show at the Beat in Los Angeles. Okay,
Speaker 2: that was his first major gig, and Steve wanted to
Speaker 2: do things his way and that didn't work for me.
Speaker 2: So I sent a shock waves through the company the
Speaker 2: morning and I used to tell Steve quite honestly, I said, listen,
Speaker 2: I did Morning Drive for eleven years.
Speaker 3: I'm waiting to talk about it.
Speaker 2: Okay, please do not tip me to replace you with myself,
Speaker 2: because I want to be on the radio in La. Okay, Steve.
Speaker 2: I think I was serious until that morning when he
Speaker 2: and I party company and I said in his chair, okay,
Speaker 2: and yeah, what were the things he wanted to do
Speaker 2: that I guess didn't jail with you.
Speaker 7: You say you want to do it his way? What
Speaker 7: ideas that he'd had that just didn't work for what
Speaker 7: you want to do, or things that just may not
Speaker 7: work for radio period.
Speaker 2: You know, Steve is very talented, but very dogmatic in
Speaker 2: his approach to how he wants to do things and
Speaker 2: get things done. You know, I don't want to go
Speaker 2: into specific Yeah, but but how.
Speaker 3: Did y'all come back together? Then?
Speaker 2: With all of that time, we came back together almost
Speaker 2: immediately because it was the best thing that ever could
Speaker 2: have happened to him, And I told him that. Let
Speaker 2: me just say to you, you know, I've been married,
Speaker 2: and I've been in some serious long term relationships, and
Speaker 2: I'm friends with all of my exes because to me,
Speaker 2: just because a person is your ex whether it's professionally
Speaker 2: or personally, you shouldn't be bad mouthing that makes you
Speaker 2: look like you ain't got good sense, makes you look
Speaker 2: like you don't have good.
Speaker 5: Yes, let's talk about it, miss Hughes.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm the same way professionally, all right, just because
Speaker 2: it didn't work out, I'm not going to bad mouth
Speaker 2: for you. I'm not going to stop you from getting
Speaker 2: other opportunities. I'm not going to stand in your way, Okay,
Speaker 2: because it makes me look like I didn't know what
Speaker 2: I was doing when I hired you. Okay, all right,
Speaker 2: same thing with exes. I give this lecture to young
Speaker 2: women all the time. It is crazy for you to
Speaker 2: be bad mouthing your baby daddy. Okay, you got prankti
Speaker 2: by him, You shut enough of him, okay to have
Speaker 2: a baby with him, and now he is low live dog.
Speaker 2: People basically don't change, So okay, then that's why he
Speaker 2: was when you decide you will let him get you pregnant.
Speaker 2: So that doesn't reflect very favorably on you. I feel
Speaker 2: the same way personally.
Speaker 5: Hey, wait, hold on, this year is philosophically speaking. If
Speaker 5: people don't change, how do you give them second and
Speaker 5: third chances? How does that work?
Speaker 2: Their basic personalities don't change. People do change. You learn, you.
Speaker 5: Learn, Your understanding of them changes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're understanding of them changes, and they do change
Speaker 2: in terms of how they operate. Okay, all right. We
Speaker 2: haven't had any of the issues with Steve being on
Speaker 2: our stage at stations in a syndicated capacity that we
Speaker 2: had was working for me directly, and I mean right
Speaker 2: after Steve came. La La Lala was my midday air
Speaker 2: personality at the feat while.
Speaker 1: I was a midday mommy too with Chris.
Speaker 3: I'm a loving poon daddy. Remember in Atlanta, that's where
Speaker 3: she started.
Speaker 6: I knew Lala when she was an MTV personality.
Speaker 2: Wait, we're the one who got her that job. The
Speaker 2: woman who was the program director at MTV was Mary
Speaker 2: Catherine Mary Mary Catherine Sneed, who was in charge of
Speaker 2: programming for all my radio stations. As she said, listen,
Speaker 2: there's a great opportunity. I think Lala would be perfect
Speaker 2: for Okay, And we negotiated that contract for La La.
Speaker 2: And again it kind of hurts my feelings because Lala
Speaker 2: talked about I started off in radio. I was like,
Speaker 2: could you call her company's name? It would help us.
Speaker 2: We're a small black company.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Any Okay, that's what I'm so grateful to you having
Speaker 2: me on this. Please. You've had all okay, the kings
Speaker 2: and queens of celebrity, don't okay, And for you to
Speaker 2: allow me to come on as such an honor. I'm
Speaker 2: so grateful to all of you, all.
Speaker 3: Fabric of America. What are you saying? You're a part
Speaker 3: of the fabric? You are all our lives, Hey, y'all,
Speaker 3: It's like eah, and that's where we will end Part
Speaker 3: one of the Questlove Supreme interview with Kathy Hughes, the
Speaker 3: first black woman to head a media company publicly traded
Speaker 3: on the US Stock Exchange. You may know those companies
Speaker 3: as TV one and Radio one, which come together as
Speaker 3: Urban One. Missus Hughes has been in my life since
Speaker 3: the beginning, so I am truly honored to have her
Speaker 3: on her first ever podcast interview with Team Supreme. Yes,
Speaker 3: stay tuned for Part two, where Kathy speaks about her
Speaker 3: commitment to portray black excellence on television, stories on some
Speaker 3: of her famed hosts, and the role of radio in
Speaker 3: the Black community today. As a QLs tradition, we will
Speaker 3: continue to celebrate Women's History Month with some of the
Speaker 3: strongest female voices and that's definitely Kathy Hughes. Don't forget
Speaker 3: to check out Part two coming soon.
Speaker 1: Must Love Supreme is the production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 6: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 6: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.