How Are Black Media Pros Rewriting the Playbook? | Truth In This Art Highlights

My next guest is a critically acclaimed audio producer, host, storyteller, and an avid pop culture enthusiast. He is the host of the television and film review podcast, Leaving the Theater, host of the storytelling podcast, Wait For It, and is also a regular contributor to NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour as a guest panelist. Please welcome Ronald Young Junior. What makes for a good story? What are those those traits that that interest you?

Like, what are the stories that you avoid as well? Like, you know, what is it what is it about, you know, a story that really catches your eye or detracts you that pulls you away from it?

I am most attracted to telling stories and hearing stories, that are I have some sort of vulnerability in them. I have less interest in stories in which people are not growing emotionally or not telling some sort of story that, like, at least, teases some emotional growth or something that they've learned. And I I don't mean and there's a lot of stories where they they get to the end of it and say, and that's what I learned, and I'm like, I'm not talking that clear, but I mean, just from the start of a story to the end of a story, I really wanna hear a journey that the storyteller goes on, in order to to be the person that's standing in front of us telling the story. And I think, most people that tell their first story wanna just kind of tell you from a to b some things that happened, or they wanna tell you about an existential journey that happened in their head, and I think the really skilled storytellers are very good at telling you something that happened, and giving you enough details for you to realize that they are now changed, whatever that may whatever that may mean, even in the ways they're picking the details to tell the very beginning of a story.

I tell a story about prom, and, in the beginning of the story, you can tell that from the way that I'm telling it, I'm telling about, you know, my repressed childhood, how my parents were very strict, all of that. But from the way that I'm telling those details, you can tell that I have a feeling about that now, or I am not that person anymore. And so as I'm telling the story and have the perspective on it, I'm able to actually kind of pull out more details that make the story a little bit more rich as we go. So I'm interested in people, like, going on that journey, and saying, not just I I don't wanna just know what happened to you. I wanna know why it impacted you, and I wanna want you to weave that into the story about what that actually means, without being so, overtly stated, because I think a lot of times, I think that the audience should be doing some work.

I think there are movies and television shows and books that spoon feed the morals to the audience, and those are all written for children, and and for and there are b movies in a lot of ways. You're gonna be it's not necessarily the top movies that are just, like, being subtle and telling you what the lesson is. But, like, make the listener, make the audience do a little bit of work to say, oh, and make those connections in their in their head. I feel like

if you can get an audience to be sitting down looking at you

and say, oh, and you could see the wheels turning and see the connections being made and seeing them actually get with you, then you've done a very good job of telling a story. And those are the types of stories that I like.

We have a great, great guest. His work has been featured in LA Times, New York Times, New York Post, TMZ, Yahoo. I'm gonna take a deep breath because the list goes on and on, including Billboard, The Associated Press, and CNN. He is a 25 plus year veteran of the entertainment industry, and he is the founder of allhiphop.com. Please welcome the great Rauchy Greg Watkins.

So for you, for all hip hop, what are those considerations that come to mind? What is good journalism, specifically when it comes to hip hop journalism, hip hop related journalism?

You nailed it, man. Being factually correct. You know? You know, there have been plenty of times where we have a story and we're ready to go because we know maybe the one source that's telling us is right and trustworthy, but it needs to be verified. And we we can't be the first one to go and be wrong.

I mean, it's just that simple. You know? And there have been times where we where we've held back. There have been other times where we know our source is so correct and so right that we go. Yeah.

You know? So it it really is, you know, having an understanding of of being able to trust your sources, you know, and and, you know, in the in the instance of breaking news specifically, being able to trust your sources. Outside of that, on every other story, I mean, we nail and we we nail down and drill down on everything, months, dates, years. You know, we make sure that those things are fact checked before they go up. We have an editor who does those things, and, you know, I mean, we're not perfect.

There are times where we have been wrong, on a date or a month or misspell the name, but we try to go back and fix those things when they're called out. And the audience will call you out when you're wrong about things. And so, you know, we're not too proud to say, you know what? We better go back in and fix this because the the goal is for us, we look at ourselves as chronicler chronicling hip hop history as well every day. And so we want a another generation when they go back and they wanna untangle what happened in hip hop in March of, you know, 2007.

Yeah. We want that to be right. We want it to be historically and factually accurate. So we've always had a, a focus on making sure that those things are right. And, you know, there have been times where we, you know, pulled the trigger, so to speak, on a story because we knew we had to go.

We were first breaking news, and there have been times we said, you know what? We need to get a little more confirmation on this before we go, and we hold back. And if somebody breaks it before us, they break it before us.

Today, I have the privilege of being able to engage in a conversation with a seasoned public media professional whose journey spans over 25 years. You know, originally hailing from Brooklyn, New York, my guest has made a name for himself in jazz radio from being a host at WEAA FM at Morgan State University to chief content officer at the renowned WBGO. He has a rich background in public media. Please welcome Stevan Vegas Smith. Talk about sort of the thinking going into that, the thinking that goes into, like, what you do on a day to day, and how that maybe applies to supporting, like, what you value, you know, as a creative, as a person in the public, media sphere?

So the the job of chief content officer, that person oversees all of the content on the broadcast side and on the digital side. That's every program you hear on the radio to social media and, articles on the website, podcasts, that you produce with the team. And in accepting this role, even though there was a lot of knowledge I already gained through work experience and the things I did on my own, obviously, I felt like I I need more. I need to learn. I need the pulse of what's happening next.

Right? Whether it's for radio or it's for podcasting or whatever. And attending conferences is always a it was always a a benefit for me. Right? Like, the past 2 years, I attended the, Podcast Movement Evolutions Conference, which is more of the business centered version.

Like, it's still podcasting, but you get a lot more information regarding the business of podcasting versus their other conference that's more so just celebrating content creators who podcast and things like that. And I would go there and I would take notes, and there are things that I'm grabbing for, you know, for BGO or or whatever organization I'm working for. But then I'm a podcaster, so there are things I'm grabbing for myself, techniques, things that worked. And it's really not that difficult. You know?

I think a lot of times we put pressure on ourselves whether we're independent or we have a a team that's independent or we work for a organization to say podcasting needs to sound like this or this, but it's really not. That's why, you know, that's why everybody losing money because podcast, people who listen and consume podcasts, like myself, you know, we we're not that picky, but it's oversaturated at this point. Mhmm. One thing I I saw at the last conference I was at, was I think that was in Las Vegas where I was sitting in a session and it was about production. Right?

Like, you know, things that happen while you're recording the interview like this.

Mhmm.

And, you know, what you fix in post and how you handle yourself in the moment. So I just wanted to hear what they were gonna say. And everything that was said, I already knew. But there was one thing that stood out to me was this dude is just sitting here talking. Mhmm.

And he's on a stage. And people, like, including myself, are taking notes and typing. And and I'm like, he's not doing anything that people that look like me and you can't do and sound just as interesting. Because to your point, with podcasts being saturated and they're kind of being, like, a next especially with the with the brothers. And I'm talking white brother, black brother, whatever you you wanna slice it of it being a bro thing to have a podcast instead of something that could be a intellectual interesting conversation.

And that's when I got the idea for My Little Podcast because I've been podcasting for years, but I never fully committed to the production and to the performance of it Yeah. Because it was casual. It was a offshoot of me doing strictly hip hop. And, you know, I kept it that way to keep it from feeling like work. But the My Little Podcast project was my way to say, here's all my experience as a as a host, as a interviewer, as a, production person, as a promotions person.

Everything you see and hear from the artwork to the quality of interviews, and trust me, there was some fix it in post moments for sure. I wanted it to be not only an example of what I can do. Yeah. And on my skills, but I wanted to highlight people who weren't necessarily, like, you know, a listers and stuff like that and just say, this person has an interesting journey that can inspire you even if you don't do any of this stuff. It may inspire you to do something totally different than what they're doing.

Yeah.

But hearing their story, maybe you can relate. You know? So that was the whole objective was highlighting us as, you know, as black people, but also highlighting content creators of all kinds. And then, you know, for myself, just showing that I could put this together. And then I'll just share, well, you know, my context that look different from us and say, this is what you want from us.

You know?

A sought after television personality, op culture commentator, content creator, celebrity blogger, and motivational speaker who is also an expert on topics ranging from race and politics to television and film. Please welcome the great Lisa Durden. Is there an experience that, when you think of projects that are forthcoming, projects that are in production 2024, you know, and onward, is there an experience that you look back to, you know, pre Lisa, early Lisa, and think, like, alright. This is absolutely something that I'm coming back to now, you know, in this stage of my career. Like, one of those early points, like, I won't be doing that again, or I've learned from this from this experience in the past.

Well, no. The worst of it all, I guess, if you will, was the experience of kind of, like, coming to an awakening about, you know, the real way racism happens,

and

it's not always overt. You know, like the experience I just said earlier about the man. He didn't say, you know, I wanna make sure people know tease up that these are gonna be Negroes, but he was in essence saying that. So so the biggest lesson was that racism is all not always obvious and overt. Right?

The there there's internal biases and all those other kind of things. So that was kind of, like, my hard not a lesson, but my hardest moment or awakening or, you know, like, wow. But I will say the biggest the most disappointing, if you will, or the, the ongoing struggle, if you will, is the journey itself, you know, not quitting. So even from that point forward, you know, once I picked up this kind of multi hyphenate thing about me where I'm not just on camera, I'm producing as well, you know, in the in between spaces where you feel a little safe when you get this, like, freelance job. Right?

And then you go, and then it ends, and you're back on the grind again. That space where you're always on the grind, and just like Taraji said, my last job did not put me in any position better for the next job. It's just if I never did the last job. No matter how successful I've been, no matter what I've done, just like Taraji, is you're at the bottom. I'd never got another job after the last successful job as a freelance producer.

I'm just using using that as an example where I didn't have to kind of act like I never did the job before, improving myself all the time. I never got that call saying you put on. Right? I have gotten 1 or 2 calls where they're like, oh, hey. Hey.

What's going on? What are you doing? Okay. I'll give you the example. I got a call.

It was like I saw something on LinkedIn. I applied for a job to be the producer for this, this this 2 hour crime show special called Diary of a Killer. So I got a call from the producer. She's got a bigger position now, but at the time, she was the producer. And she said, hey.

What you up to? What have you been doing lately? She didn't even ask me about the job. So luckily, I don't tell her my business. So I was doing another project, but I didn't tell her that because something always says, well, we're not friends.

Why am I telling you my business? We're not friends like that. But so so I just thought she was checking in on me. So I just said, oh, yeah. You know, I'm working at one of the community colleges a little bit and doing a little bit of something.

So and I just I didn't tell her I'm working on the u h Hulu project. I just didn't mention it because I felt like, why? Luckily, I didn't. If I had said, I'll work on Hulu project, she would've thought I was too busy. So I didn't mention it just because I just didn't.

So she said, oh, by the way, I got a project I think I might want you want you to work on. So she mentioned this project. It wasn't there was no title. And she said, okay. Now I didn't just I've been on this lady since 2006.

I've been on her for a lot of years. This is, like, 2023 now. She's giving me this phone call around March. So I didn't just get the job because she's known me. She's seen all my projects.

She sees me post. She knows what I do. I still had to prove myself. Not that I wasn't in strong consideration because there I'm sure because she did know me and know my background, I had some headway. But it wasn't like I was just, like, got the job on the strength of.

I had to still send her my resume. She had to still share it with Matt, the the the the she said and she said out of mouth, I can't promise you anything. She pitched the idea. Said, sure. I'll send you my resume.

It wasn't like it just came. So the struggle and the pain is the struggle and the pain. That journey I'm not a journey girl. I'm a destination bitch. I want the destination.

I'm like a kid in the car. Are we there yet? You know what I mean? You have kids in the car. Are we there yet?

I like a destination, but I can't change that there is no such thing as destination. You've gotta do the journey. So the journey of, a, having to continue to keep proving yourself even though you've proven yourself because you're not at the top of the food chain, b, always being in and out of work because of the proving of yourself. It's not like you have this trajectory. I've I have a Hulu series out, and all these jobs are coming in.

You know, that that that that middle part between, you know, you having your own projects and you need me to pay the bills is that that middle part is the rough deal. And then that other end of it, you know, you working for somebody else once you get a gig, the middle part where you gotta keep getting a gig to the part where the other screen when you're doing your own projects, like, should you know, I'm I'm trying to do these other projects so I can become my own boss and mostly feed myself with my own projects. Do I give up? That's the struggle. You know, all of that stuff is like in a pot of soup and all boiling together.

That's a struggle. Do I give up? I'm not there yet, and age is an issue. As I age, I feel my I feel my mortality. I feel like I'm aging out.

Not so much that I can't do something at 75 or 80 because people do that all the time, especially men. But I feel like, you know, this some things to me is a young girl's game or a young man's game. So it's all of those things that I have to fight in my head to overcome and just keep marching forward till death do me part for myself. But it's a very difficult thing because I don't have the faith. I don't have hope a lot of times.

I'm hopeless. I make a joke to people who I know well. I'll say it on your show. People see me, oh, how you doing? Not good.

People can't handle the reality. When people see me, oh, what's going on, Elise? How you doing? Not good. And they say dumb shit like, oh, not good?

Oh, well, you know, it'll be better tomorrow. Then I go, well, how do you know it's gonna be better tomorrow?

Do you

ever feel do do you realize it could be worse tomorrow? So I I just don't like those little stupid ass campy comments because people can't handle the truth. They can't they they they're uncomfortable with the truth. So I try not to live my life in an inauthentic way anymore. I'm great, you know, and I'm really not.

I don't always give the details. So I try my best to make a promise to myself. And I sometimes I'll say to to the person, yeah. I don't have any hope. I'm a hopeless bitch or I'm a faithless bitch, and I'll just make a joke, but I really mean that.

So what I try to do is I try not to, like, I try not to abuse myself with words like hope and faith. I find those words to be abusive for me. So what I try to do is just simply just do what I can if I wake up the next day. I do have plans, but I don't pine over them. So when I wake up the next day, I'll have my little my little notes, and I'll go, okay.

I woke up today. What here with my notes. Do this and this and this, and then I go to bed the next and go to bed and wake up the next day if I can. So that's all I can do. Because if I actually try to think about the future, if I tried hard to think about what might be I'm pitching this show.

Is it gonna get picked up? And, oh my god. Or, oh, I was just on ABC News as the as the contributor. It's gonna propel me. I have none of those thoughts because none of that stuff has worked for me.

I didn't realize that being a black woman is that difficult. Well, now I know I'm 50 something years old. So that's kind of the problem. So not necessarily specific not necessarily specific, incidents, except for the one I mentioned with the Brick City thing. Brick City, not the document not the docuseries, the Brick City Magazine show because there was 2 things I did that had the name.

Brick City. So it's more of that. And, of course, along the way, I'm sure that a lot of the reason why I'm not where I need to be is because of racism. So I'm sure that there's an odorless smell, odorless poison that I don't and it's things are looming. I can't see.

I'm not in a room saying, you know, give it to Samantha. You know? So I'm not in rooms like that, but I'm sure the reason why the trajectory isn't there with not just the Lisa Durtons, but a lot of folks who have talent is because if you're black with talent, you're not the same thing as Becky and Ken with the talent or Bob and and Ken with the talent. You're not gonna get the same opportunities, and it's not an opinion. It's a fact.

Yes. And people like to call out, like, 10 basketball players and 2 rappers and 1 Oprah. Sure. You got it's like Atlantic City. Atlantic City would be a fool if they didn't let people win.

Right? Yeah. If you never hear of people going to Vegas winning, you're not gonna go to Vegas and play.

Well

Vegas has to let a person win some money for you to believe you can be a winner, but we know that most people who are black I'm not I'm not gonna say of color because there is called there is something called the proximity to whiteness. Other people of color have proximity to whiteness that we don't. If you have lighter skin and you're, you know, you're a Latino of some kind and you look white, you have a if you're Indian, they're dark as hell, but they still approximate to whiteness because they're not, quote, quote, black. But black people I'm talking about black folks. So, so they're gonna make us believe we can be winners because they're gonna throw a couple of basketball players in front of us, a few rappers who live in mansions, and half of them are faking it too.

But that's not most black people.

Right? With over 40 years of expertise, nearly 50, if I'm being honest, my guest today is a Marconi and Billboard award winning on air personality and radio programmer. Their impressive career spans New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and, of course, Washington DC, with notable contributions as SiriusXM Satellite Radio. My guest is a music historian, curator, podcast producer, and concert promoter. They excel in start up ventures, brand building, and marketing, particularly to the African American market.

Please welcome this industry giant, the great Max Myrick. So for you, what were some of those those early things that maybe laid some of the foundation for how you approach your work or your early interest in radio or things of that nature? What led you on your path maybe from your youth?

Well, I, grew up grew up in Toledo, Ohio. And, at the time I grew up, we didn't have black radio in Toledo. We didn't have black radio until in Toledo until 1968. So, I listened to being so close to Detroit and being so close to Canada. I listened to a station called CK LW, which was a monster signal.

It covered Detroit, Ohio. I mean, they gave the they gave the weather in Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, and then they came back and gave it in Celsius for Canada. It was a monster. It's called the big 8. And everything about that station was just bigger than life.

Yeah. And being so close to the Detroit, they had to be a little more soulful. So, they played the requisite amount of Canadian music that was available. But but the rest of it was all about Detroit, which was great for us because, you know, they play a lot of black music. The DJs had a little they were kinda hip.

They were all white, though. Yeah. But it sounded like I didn't know they weren't black until I met, Ted Richards one time, and he looked like Clint Eastwood. I was like, wow. This is but then later on, you know, in my family, my mother, you know, she loved, music.

Music was all around all the time, and, I used to go to the music store on the weekends and get the latest records because they they that time, they had the tip sheets. You know, the radio station would put put out tip sheets. And the tip sheets were like a list of the hot songs.

Yeah.

And so you look down the and and and see if you had all the latest hits. You wanted to have all the latest hits. And then, you know, I have 4 sisters, so, you know, they like to dance. And and then in the summertime, we used to go to Sandusky, Ohio where I was actually born and, stay with my grandmother. And she, you you saw that film Lackawanna Blues?

Yes. She had a room in a boarding house just like that. All cast of characters. And so in the evenings, when she would finish all her date her business, she would play her numbers.

Yeah.

You know, because the policy it was a policy time. There were no lotteries. And part of her ritual was to, you know, get her some Kessler's Whiskey, little, Miller Miller High Life As one of those That was the potion. And then she get her dream books and prayer candles out. And then my job was to play the latest music to to set the set the mood Uh-huh.

For all of this this whole ritual that happened every night. But my cousin had a record store. So I during the day, I would just spend all my time in the record store, you know, listening to music and watching what people would buy, and I was great. And so the I would bring all the hits home, you know, and my sisters would dance, my grandmother would do her rituals. So all of that combined.

Yeah. And then later on in around 68, there was a record store in Toledo called Clark's record store, Clark's one stop or something like that. And he he at that time, FM was not important. Nobody cared about FM.

Right.

So there was an FM signal that didn't have anything on it that was making money, so they gave him Saturdays for a couple of hours. He rented he bartered the time and he broadcast live from his records. They were playing all their records, and everybody would go down there and buy the records and see him broadcasting live. You know, people were scrambling to get FM because there was no FM radios around. Right.

So that'd be you know, that's where we we were introduced to local radio. And then because it it was so popular and they started to make so much money, they made it full time. And so all the Jacks in Detroit, that couldn't get on WJOB or CHB or whatever stations that were on there, you know, everybody can't get on the radio. A lot of talented people out here. So they they heard about this station.

They were looking for people, so they came down. And so it was like the cream of the crop in terms of personalities, and that was big personality time. So those those personalities were big, like, the ones on CKLW, but they were all black. And so they were speaking a different language that I could I could understand it.

You know,

I could it started now I could start to tell the difference right away because and then you could see them, you know, because they'd be out. You know? And they get and they're like, oh, that's that's that's that's Paul Brown. That's, you know, that's they had names Charlie Chuck and, you know, they were just and so I said, man, I wanna do that. And so later on, I, you know, I I did.

I I I went to the Marine Corps. And, when I was in the Marines, we were out out in, we were out in the Mediterranean for a long time, like, you know, 7 months. And

and,

you know, you'd be out there 30 days at a time, and so they had a ship entertainment system. So I just hang out in there when we weren't doing Marine Corps stuff. Yeah. And, they let me, you know, run the system. And when I got back, I enrolled in University of Toledo.

I, I got it first, I got and I got a job at a club at a restaurant that was a nightclub because disco was hot there. I was 70 76. And so, I got a I got a I enrolled in the University of Toledo. They had a campus radio station. Yeah.

And I met my lifelong friend, Michael Stratford, and he introduced me to a guy named Michael St. John, who was one of the jocks over there. He knew that was old school radio named Michael's Michael St. John. He he introduced me to Gary Outlaw, who was the music director, And, they, you know, they let me come over there as a part time employee, and I I, you know, I when I wasn't in school, I was living over there and, you know, in between that and work.

And so one time, I forgot to go to the club, and they fired me. So they just gave me more time to hang out at their radio station. Eventually, I got a full time job, and the rest is history. Wow. Thank you.

And that and that was a station I grew up listening to as a child, so it was even more thrilling.