I had such a great time talking to Pride Magazine‘s Gloria Ogunbambo recently about my career in radio for their regular ‘What I know about…’ feature.
We touched on my early radio days, and moved forward to present day. One of the things that came up (and always does when I do interviews) is being a black woman in mainstream radio. I think it’s a shame really that the issue keeps arising. I’ve always believed that if you’re good at a job, you just do it. A Plummer requires the correct tools to undertake his job; spanners, pipes, monkey wrenches etc, Radio requires articulation, the ability to read, and the ability to give the audience members something to think about, smile about, talk about etc etc. Yes I would LOVE to play my choice of music all day long but it’s highly unlikely that any boss is going to pay me a salary to bring my record collection in to work.
Music taps different energy centres in our minds and bodies. Being a Caribbean woman I LOVE soca, reggae, soul and gospel music and there’s a large and varied selection of those musical genres on my iPhone – there needs to be, I need to tap that energy centre. Having said that, I like a bit of Elton John, Kool and the Gang, Fleetwood Mac and Luther Vandross, all of which you can hear on Magic 105.4fm. And that musical genre taps a different energy centre.
You can see the results of my chat about this and more in the September 2012
issue of the magazine. I’d also be happy to get your thoughts.
