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