In August, a friend and community partner, Michelle Avan, was killed! I knew her to be kind, thoughtful, and brilliant. A mother, grandmother, mentor, and well-respected, prominent, Black Female Bank Executive!
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We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for a special announcement. One of broadcast’s most beloved journalists has returned. After three and a half years of hiatus, Tavis Smiley returns as the owner of Los Angeles’ first Black-owned talk radio station, KBLA Talk 1580 AM.
Our August morning interview found Dr. Melina Abdullah in Washington, D.C., dropping her daughter off for her sophomore year at the illustrious Howard University; the HBCU that on July 6, 2021, welcomed to its faculty Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for The New York Times, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and award-winning author and journalist, Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Suite Life SoCal magazine’s publisher, Sarah Harris, releases her 9th issue of the concierge magazine, which covers what’s trending from the Imperial Valley through Bakersfield. The Fall 2021 edition highlights events and entertainment in Southern California with an in-depth look at talk show host and KBLA Talk 1580’s radio station visionary and owner, Tavis Smiley. Suite Life SoCal uncovers what it takes to build your brand and reach the nation to create lasting change.
If you want to know who you “really” are, pay attention to what you do with silence. Pay attention to who you become when the public fanfare ceases, and life feels nothing like it once did.
What are you thinking about? What do you want? What feels like the next right thing to do?
If a Black man landing the chance to work for a Black man he admires is considered lucky, well, consider Don Amiche doubly lucky. For him, opportunity knocked twice. But we’re not talking about obscure positions with random Black men. No. We’re talking about life elevating chances. We’re talking about Black men who are beloved staples within the Black community; Black men who were distant role models to Amiche before he entered the radio industry, but now he’s honored to call a friend.
Maybe you've listened to Tammi Mac on her #1 rated radio show, The Tammi Mac Show on 102.3 FM KJLH, where she was handpicked by none other than the iconic Stevie Wonder.
All hail the Queen. The Queen of LA’s talk radio airways, that is.
She hails from the Bay Area by way of New York. She is the daughter of the late Diana DiPrima and the late Amiri Baraka, both poet laureates who left an indelible mark on the world. She is the mother of one son. She has worked with radio giants Steve Harvey and Michael Baisden. She was chosen to introduce Nelson Mandela upon his release from prison. She hosted the morning talk show “The Front Page with Dominique DiPrima” on Stevie Wonder’s KJLH 102.3 FM. And now she is the host and producer of her own morning drive show, “First Things First with Dominique DiPrima” on KBLA Talk 1580, making this five-time Emmy Award winner the first African American woman in Los Angeles to host a talk radio show.
When God gets ready to bless you, He doesn’t need you in the room; He just needs you to live so that the person in the room feels confident introducing you to the room.
Danny Morrison is the name KBLA’s sales manager, Otis Warren, eventually tendered to Tavis Smiley after sitting in a meeting listening to Smiley describe the characteristics of an on-air radio personality he wanted in his weekday lineup. Flabbergasted, Warren excused himself from the meeting, called Morrison, and said, “They’re talking about you. They have a list of what they want, and it’s you.”
Nefertiti Austin is a woman of many talents and many stories. Her experience as a writer and a mother is portrayed in her brilliant memoir about her remarkable journey to parenthood, tackling sexism and racism along the way.
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