Questlove Supreme: Cathy Hughes Part 1

Cathy Hughes is the first Black woman to head a publicly traded media company and a true radio pioneer. In part one of a two-part interview, Ms. Hughes joins Questlove Supreme for her first-ever podcast. She discusses her journey into radio, creating The Quiet Storm show format, and helping launch some incredible entertainment careers.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Post Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm so honored. This is my very first podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
Oh my god. That means you've denied many a requests,
but we made it.

Speaker 4 (00:15):
I misues, I'm sugar Steve.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
I love your name.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Thank you a single.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Don't ask about it if you want to.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Say, don't make any inquiries that you're not looking for it.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Yeah, I'm serious.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Man.

Speaker 4 (00:37):
I don't know where you are, but I know your
Bill's managing now.

Speaker 5 (00:40):
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.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Long that I haven't paid yet. It would be super jinky.

Speaker 6 (00:56):
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

(01:17):
is Quest Left Supreme. We are together again. We're together,
all five of us. It's been a minute.

Speaker 5 (01:26):
Oh yeah, hey William here.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Hey Bill, have you you've been going a long time.

Speaker 5 (01:32):
I went to Fante's house to get cigarettes and I'm back.
I'm back. I'm happy to be back. Thank you.

Speaker 6 (01:37):
So I'm hearing around the grape vine that you've created
yet another Broadway hit.

Speaker 5 (01:44):
You know, people seem to like it. People come to
see it. It's exciting.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
I'm you're in the buzz. I'm here in the buzz.

Speaker 5 (01:50):
I think you should come see it. I think everyone
should come to see it. It's quite it's a good show.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
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.

Speaker 6 (02:08):
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.

Speaker 5 (02:23):
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.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Get it first animation role Yep.

Speaker 5 (02:37):
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.

Speaker 6 (02:48):
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

(03:11):
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

(03:33):
as a radio personality in Philadelphia and other markets.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
What were your other markets besides Philadelphia? Atlanta, DMV, the Atlanta.

Speaker 6 (03:42):
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

(04:05):
enough to have your own afternoon show, you become a
midday mommy.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Wait, what's a guy get like does a guy get
that title?

Speaker 3 (04:12):
Like York? No?

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Anyway, very few men mid days.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
We got to talk about it's a reason too.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Oh I wouldn't. Yeah, this is going to be the
radio educational show.

Speaker 6 (04:27):
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

(04:48):
You still have like your fantasy radio shows when you
were like twelve, right, Oh.

Speaker 4 (04:52):
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.

Speaker 6 (05:08):
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.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
I didn't do radio.

Speaker 7 (05:26):
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

(05:47):
And then I mean our first album WJLR, that was
a fictional radio station.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
That's right, even on your own records, you.

Speaker 6 (05:53):
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

(06:17):
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.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
LS.

Speaker 6 (06:42):
Absolutely if your fans of Ricky Smiley, Russ Parr, Reverend
NOWD Sharpton, T. D.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Jakes, D L. Hughley, Erica Campbell like you can name
them all.

Speaker 6 (06:54):
She's literally responsible one of the most powerful figures in communication.
Owner of Urban One formerly Radio one, TV one, Interactive one.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
I cannot believe we pulled this off. Thank you very much.
We have the one and only Kathy Hughes one quest
Love Supreme.

Speaker 6 (07:14):
That's probably the longest introduction I've ever given them life.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
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.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Are they scared? Are they nervous?

Speaker 2 (07:32):
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

(07:53):
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.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
Resiaon and the records at all.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
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

(08:41):
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

(09:03):
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

(09:24):
my radio show. So that was the start of my
career for you.

Speaker 6 (09:29):
Like when I mentioned radio, what were your memories of it?
Who were you listening to as a kid?

Speaker 2 (09:36):
Well? Number one, I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and
so I listened to Conway Twitty.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
What you know about Conway Twitty?

Speaker 2 (09:46):
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

(10:09):
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.

(10:29):
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

(10:51):
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,

(11:13):
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.

(11:35):
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.

(12:00):
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

(12:21):
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

(12:42):
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

(13:05):
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.

Speaker 6 (13:24):
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.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
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

(13:54):
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

(14:14):
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

(14:34):
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.

Speaker 6 (14:54):
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.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
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

(15:26):
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.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
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.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
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,

(16:06):
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

(16:28):
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

(16:51):
black and white people, they also were not supposed to
have gay and lesbian people.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
Right, Okay, I think it was my raining the way
I'm okay.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
They were really pighan years in so many different areas,
and it was the nineteen thirties.

Speaker 6 (17:03):
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.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Which was thank you, thank you, thank you for that, thank.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
You God, thank you for receiving that.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
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.

(17:50):
So forgive me for cutting you off, but I thank
you to tell you.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
That I'll take that compliment. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (17:55):
Well.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
I was going to say to you that.

Speaker 6 (17:59):
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

(18:21):
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.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
Maybe eight or nine cats that like collect these things.
For the life of us. We are are searching high and.

Speaker 6 (18:39):
Low for either Georgie Woods's radio show or the dance
show that he used to have in Philadelphia.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
That's like thats goal to us.

Speaker 6 (18:49):
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.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
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.

Speaker 6 (19:23):
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.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
To sort of work your way up the ladder.

Speaker 6 (19:40):
What's the what's the first step that you had to
take to officially plant some feet inside of that world?

Speaker 2 (19:49):
I started off as an owner.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
But yeah, that's a flex.

Speaker 6 (19:54):
That's the greatest flex of all time. That's the show.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Good night, Omaha.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
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.

(20:24):
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.

(20:44):
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.

Speaker 6 (21:12):
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?

Speaker 2 (21:26):
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

(21:48):
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,

(22:09):
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

(22:29):
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

(22:50):
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

(23:14):
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

(23:38):
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.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
OK.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
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

(24:13):
on their resume.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
I'll say it again, still the best college radio station too.
I just wanted to say it again to me in
the nation.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
I will say it.

Speaker 6 (24:21):
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.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
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.

(24:55):
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,

(25:17):
you didn't get played. And so that's that's been always
a priority with my programming.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Because you're an owner, maybe you can explain this to me. Okay.

Speaker 6 (25:27):
So when I got in the industry professionally, at least
with the roots, it was like ninety.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
Three, And when our third album.

Speaker 6 (25:37):
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.

(26:00):
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

(26:21):
stations and things were like pre programmed almost weeks in
advance before you even get there.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
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

(26:51):
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

(27:14):
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,

(27:38):
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,

(28:00):
when I recognized Go Go as being like the national
anthem of Washington.

Speaker 7 (28:06):
D C.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
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

(28:31):
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

(28:52):
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

(29:13):
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

(29:33):
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.

(29:54):
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

(30:18):
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

(30:39):
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

(31:00):
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.

(31:20):
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

(31:41):
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

(32:02):
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.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
Hard that's that's gas money to get to the next show.

Speaker 6 (32:21):
And I'm sorry, I know this is the less I talk.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
Because I'm paid. I will get a condition off of paid.
I represented him.

Speaker 5 (32:32):
Now, finally the respect I deserve after all these years.
Thank you, Thank you, You're welcome.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
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.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
No, it was actually the opportunity to be on the
faculty in the first school of Communications.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
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.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
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

(33:28):
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

(33:50):
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.

(34:10):
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.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
They had so many to.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Tony Brown. Who has Tony Brown's journal still Brown, Yes.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
Shout out Tony Brown.

Speaker 6 (34:37):
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.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
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

(35:23):
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

(35:43):
faculty then.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
Okay, oh I'm Christmas parties.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
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

(36:06):
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,

(36:27):
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.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
Which the school which is now named the Kathy Hughes
school Latin.

Speaker 6 (36:44):
Do you have a listing of like just some of
the who's who of personalities that have sort of just
come through your.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
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

(37:14):
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

(37:35):
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.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
All right.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
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

(38:14):
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

(38:34):
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

(38:56):
seat venue.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
Right, everyone gets this start. So were was there an
act that was a hard sell?

Speaker 3 (39:08):
You know?

Speaker 6 (39:09):
Did you get an awkward prince back in like nineteen
seventy eight when he wasn't ready yet?

Speaker 2 (39:13):
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?

Speaker 3 (39:32):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (39:32):
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,

(39:53):
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

(40:13):
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

(40:37):
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.

Speaker 6 (40:57):
Okay, so you help us sure in like the nostalgia
era or.

Speaker 3 (41:02):
The urban ac category. I mean I think she's saying
that they created the urban acn category.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
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

(41:31):
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

(41:54):
Quiet Storm was love music. Love was bad ballots, and
I had to really reach back, all right to eras
where lyrics told stories.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
You gotta tell that story. You need to tell the
Quiet Storm story.

Speaker 5 (42:13):
Where's the name from?

Speaker 6 (42:14):
Explain to us who Melvin Lindsay was and how you
guys invented. You guys basically helped triple the population.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
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

(42:43):
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

(43:04):
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

(43:25):
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

(43:47):
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

(44:11):
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

(44:32):
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

(44:55):
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.

(45:19):
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

(45:44):
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,

(46:07):
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,

(46:29):
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.

(46:52):
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

(47:14):
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

(47:35):
reason my name is Kathy Hughes.

Speaker 6 (47:37):
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.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
Guy in so sexy and I was still young to
even know it.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
So oh yes, I was like, so how did you?

Speaker 3 (48:05):
And did the song come upo the show?

Speaker 2 (48:07):
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.

(48:28):
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?

Speaker 1 (48:41):
Conservative?

Speaker 2 (48:42):
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.

(49:08):
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

(49:33):
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.

(49:55):
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

(50:21):
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

(50:42):
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,

(51:09):
and so age took him away way too soon.

Speaker 3 (51:13):
He was he was our first, right like I felt
like he was our first major was.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
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

(51:41):
only out for a short period of time, and then
he was gone.

Speaker 3 (51:45):
He still needs to be in the Radio Hall of
Fame somewhere.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
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.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
Talk about the franchising, the franchising of the Quiet Storm. Then, yeah,
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
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.

Speaker 3 (52:26):
Yes, that sounds like what the tek.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
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

(52:53):
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.

(53:16):
They punished me for the quiet Storm.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
Really why terribly.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
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.

(53:44):
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.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
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

(54:25):
paid my tuition to the business school at that time
they had a six week course called Broadcast Management.

Speaker 4 (54:34):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
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,

(54:55):
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,

(55:19):
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

(55:39):
to fruition, and for that I'm eternally grateful.

Speaker 6 (55:47):
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

(56:09):
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

(56:30):
I'm certain that you have to have some sort of
personal relationships with all of these conglomerates.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
One, why do you care? Two? How taxing is it
to run an empire?

Speaker 2 (56:50):
It's a long way you get the empire.

Speaker 6 (56:52):
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?

Speaker 3 (57:07):
Is?

Speaker 6 (57:07):
For me, it's not It's not quantity more than it's
the quality.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
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.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
To tell us stories, drop in.

Speaker 3 (57:25):
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.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
Up mama coming home.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
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

(58:00):
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

(58:23):
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

(58:46):
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

(59:07):
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,

(59:29):
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

(59:50):
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

(01:00:11):
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,

(01:00:33):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
Okay, it's literally like working for your auntie.

Speaker 6 (01:00:51):
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

(01:01:12):
that sort of grow in stature.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
So how do you.

Speaker 6 (01:01:17):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
And you might like if they decide to go rogue?

Speaker 6 (01:01:33):
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,

(01:01:54):
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?

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
I hope, I asked that question would.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
Be as big as they can possibly be. But most important, well,
wasn't that bad.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
Business for you?

Speaker 6 (01:02:15):
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?

Speaker 3 (01:02:27):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
How do you handle that situation?

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
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

(01:02:53):
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.

(01:03:15):
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

(01:03:39):
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

(01:04:00):
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

(01:04:23):
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

(01:04:44):
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

(01:05:07):
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,

(01:05:28):
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,

(01:05:49):
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

(01:06:10):
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

(01:06:30):
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,

(01:06:53):
you raised, all right, come back many many, many times,
and some.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
Of them you know, many times.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
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

(01:07:34):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:07:55):
Underwell was a black Republican on Tom Jordan's show. First
she was just did a feature.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
Okay, wow, whoa.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
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

(01:08:23):
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,

(01:08:45):
I did Morning Drive for eleven years.

Speaker 3 (01:08:48):
I'm waiting to talk about it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
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

(01:09:15):
that I guess didn't jail with you.

Speaker 7 (01:09:16):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
Did y'all come back together? Then?

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
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

(01:10:02):
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.

Speaker 5 (01:10:11):
Yes, let's talk about it, miss Hughes.

Speaker 2 (01:10:19):
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

(01:10:39):
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

(01:11:05):
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.

Speaker 5 (01:11:15):
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?

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
Their basic personalities don't change. People do change. You learn, you.

Speaker 5 (01:11:28):
Learn, Your understanding of them changes.

Speaker 2 (01:11:30):
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

(01:11:50):
after Steve came. La La Lala was my midday air
personality at the feat while.

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
I was a midday mommy too with Chris.

Speaker 3 (01:12:00):
I'm a loving poon daddy. Remember in Atlanta, that's where
she started.

Speaker 6 (01:12:03):
I knew Lala when she was an MTV personality.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
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.

(01:12:32):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:12:41):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
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.

Speaker 3 (01:13:00):
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

(01:13:21):
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

(01:13:42):
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.

Speaker 1 (01:14:11):
Must Love Supreme is the production of iHeart Radio.

Speaker 6 (01:14:18):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.