"If you stay ready, you ain't go to get ready." - Sugar Free
That lyric is a mantra that Southern California native Kendall B has lived by ever since he got to Syracuse University and WJPZ. When a morning show co-host didn't show up, this young overnight jock stuck around to do the show with Jim Gallagher. When the prior host of the Saturday Night Dance Jam didn't show up to train him, Kendall took over the show. And when a slot opened up on the morning show his senior year, he started hosting it. This mantra served him well in his professional career, too.
Kendall started as an overnight jock in Greensboro, North Carolina, subsisting on extra Bojangles chicken sandwiches in his freezer. By always being ready, he worked his way up to morning show producer, and eventually nights, hosting Kendall B's Night Train, in a truly golden era for Hip Hop and R&B.
Next, it was off to Denver to do middays, then mornings when that slot opened up. His "interim" morning show gig lasted seventeen years, becoming a fixture in the community. In fact, when that gig ended, he was approached by another GM in town who wanted him badly enough to let him do the show remotely. It didn't matter that Kendall and his wife were headed home to LA.
Kendall stayed ready - getting into corporate radio training with Futuri Media, and after his last on-air gig ended, he moved his show to Amazon's new Amp platform - where his Denver and national listeners can hear him every weekday morning, Pacific time of course.
As a 30 year radio veteran, Kendall shares his thoughts on the current state of the industry, and what it needs to do going forward. And we wrap up with a couple hilarious stories from WJPZ circa 1990, involving a cassette deck and a men's room.
More: Kendall B's show On Amp (live weekdays at 9am Eastern/6am Pacific): https://live.onamp.com/Y3w4zkVR6wb
Kendall's Goodbye Break on YouTube: https://youtu.be/OjLJDD52GuI
Join Us in Syracuse for Banquet on March 4th: https://bit.ly/WJPZ50BanquetTickets
The WJPZ at 50 Podcast is produced by Jon Gay '02 and JAG in Detroit Podcasts
JAG: Welcome to WJPZ at 50. I am Jon Jag Gay. Many of us who have worked in the radio industry have experienced as Dr. Rick Wright calls it the Zig, unfortunately. But there's a select few of us who have made such an impact in the community that they serve, that they're actually allowed to say goodbye, as opposed to, hey, yesterday was your last show. That actually happened a few months ago. For today's guest, I am thrilled to have him welcome from the class of 92 Kendall B.
Kendall: Jag, how are you this morning, this afternoon, this evening? Whenever you're listening.
JAG: It's a podcast. It doesn't matter. You're a morning show host, so I know you wanna say this morning, right?
Kendall: It comes so naturally to me to say good morning, because I've been doing it for so long.
So it's good to be here. Good to be part of this whole collective. It is so much fun.
JAG: Take us back to the beginning, Kendall. How did you end up, cuz you're an LA guy. How did you end up in frigid Syracuse, New York?
Kendall: Like a lot of people, I wanted to be the next Bob Costas. .
JAG: Hang on. I got a tote board in here. One more, one more tick mark as you're about the 20th person. Okay, go ahead.
Kendall: Yes. I want it to be the next Bob Costas. Next Marv Albert. Sports broadcasting in Newhouse is what brought me to Syracuse, and Syracuse was top of my list. Michigan State was two, Purdue was third. Cause I knew at the time at least they all had decent journalism slash broadcast schools.
Northwestern wasn't there, neither was Mizzou for whatever reason. So imagine me this kid from Southern California saying, I want to go to Syracuse. Never having experienced snow, never having experienced, cold weather like that. But I knew that's what I wanted. And when I got the acceptance letter, I told my mom, told my dad, this is what I want to do.
And they said, all right, let's do it. Packed up my things, went all the way across the country, flew out with my stuff, and I landed that SU for freshman year. Sadler Hall. And freshman year, I'll never forget it, the first day that I was on campus, the first place that I went was JPZ.
I took a beeline to Watson Hall and went to JPZ and just walked in to see what was going on, because the door was open. Somebody was on the air, forget who it was, and I had this feeling like, yeah, this is where I'm supposed to be. I forget who told me the information about JPZ, but they said there's gonna be an orientation, so come on through when we have the orientation.
I think it was at the Hall of Languages and we'll see what's going on. So I got the information and then it went from there.
JAG: So you go to the orientation and how'd you get involved with the station? Take me through your time there, Kendall?
Kendall: So I went through the shadow process and did some, fake breaks or whatnot, and this was with, if I'm not mistaken, it was Lippy, it was Brian Lapis who was my guy.
At a certain point, there was a position open from four to 6:00 AM and it was probably six or seven weeks into freshman year, I had everybody on my floor at Sadler Hall up and listening to Z 89 that morning, when I was on from four to 6:00 AM. And that was my shift for not too long. It really only lasted from the first part of my freshman year into the spring because in the spring I got moved up to the 11 to 2 shift.
And I think part of the reason why I got moved up a little quicker than some is that one morning I stayed over to do the Crazy morning crew because Jim Gallagher, who several of the past guests on the podcast have told you about who was a phenomenal talent. Nobody came in to do crazy morning crew.
And I just happened to be doing overnights and I volunteered. I said, hey, I'll hang around. Why not? Let's hang around and have some fun. And so he was just there doing his thing and I was there to, bounce things off of him. And we just connected in that thing and it didn't turn into a full on thing.
But I think other people may have heard that and said, Hey, who's this? This freshman just came in and just did crazy morning crew with the legendary Jim Gallagher and held his own. So he must have some kind of innate talent to do this. So 11 to two came in the second part of my freshman year, spring semester.
Then I also did some midday fill-ins and things like that. So that's where it was. It wasn't really until sophomore year that things really took off for me. I applied and got the assistant program director's job at that point. And that worked out very well. So I got to learn about, music rotations and putting songs on carts and things like, But, in that position was where I walked into a spot where the station was in a little bit of trouble.
And if my memory serves me correct, Shelvin Demps was doing the Saturday Night Dance Jam and Sunday Night Love flight, as z being the station that was trying to teach students how to do radio as it goes. We didn't have a lot of block programming, but dance jam and love flight were block programs.
It's more of in the R&B sense, but if I remember correct, I guess Shelvin, as a college athlete who ran out of eligibility and the current management of the station wanted to say, okay, we wanna make sure that these are students doing this. Not somebody who had been a student but is just living in Syracuse now.
Okay. So at some point they said, okay, Shelvin, we have to move on. And they looked at me and said, hey, you probably know how to do this. So I got thrown in to doing dance jam. What was supposed to happen is one Saturday I was supposed to go in and shadow Shelvin and see what was going on, and I went in and he wasn't there.
JAG: So he peaced out.
Kendall: Yeah, I was the guy there to do the show and I did Dance Jam that night and Dance Jam was your mix of hip hop and R& B and dance music and I got thrown into doing that and that became really my thing for sophomore year into junior year, and then in the senior year, also in the assistant program director mode.
And one of the things that, it shows you how your journey goes, is that I was not one of those people who spent a summer on campus. And I knew that I would have to do that if I wanted to exceed and go to the program level, the program director level, but I didn't do that. I believe it was Hal who was the program director. And we had the discussion and he said, you're not running for program director? I said, no, I'm going home for the summer because of a couple reasons. Number one, I was homesick. Number two, I couldn't afford to stay on campus the entire summer. Yeah. Number three, I had a pretty primo internship at the Arsenio Hall Show.
JAG: Oh! This is what, 90 91 ish?
Kendall: This is summer of 90. So I got that internship. But the good thing about that is that I learned so much about the industry just by watching the pros do it, even on the television end that it served me so well coming back that fall that I was able to implement so many different things on my show and things that I was doing at the station.
So I became the Dance Jam guy for junior year, just not doing anything administratively at the station. Just that. And then senior year comes along and all of a sudden, the crazy morning crew comes back into my life. I hadn't done anything on the crew for, since really freshman year, but I knew people who had.
And one of the shows was Matthew Berry, Adam Shapiro and Chris Lindsay. And they were funny. They were really good. For whatever reason, I don't remember why Matthew couldn't continue on the show. I think he was too busy or doing something, something else was going on that he couldn't do it. And Adam, who I was already friends with since freshman year, he said, hey, you're already here at Z 89 doing this.
How about you come and take the anchor role on the crew? I said, sure, because I'd always wanted to do mornings. So Adam, asked me to come on the show and anchor the crew for senior year. and it worked. I was able to, I already had a good rapport with Adam because we were both the Newhouse kids that weren't initially Newhouse kids.
We both got admitted to Arts and Sciences. We didn't get into Newhouse initially, so as freshmen, both of us just connected and said, okay, we're gonna do this. We're gonna get into new to Newhouse. And both of us did sophomore year. So we got, we had that connection and then I knew of Lindsay, but I didn't really know him, and we just all hit it off and did such a fun job at doing crazy Morning crew twice a week on Wednesdays and Fridays. And then I did my Saturday show for the Dance Jam. So that's really where I was. So I was really more so of an on-air personality, content creator than an administrative person at the station.
And I know there's so many stories about my era of so many things going on, but I was that guy that was like, okay, as long as the station's on the air, I can still come and do a show. Which is on my part, seemed a little silly because I know that there were people behind the scenes doing God's work to keep the station on the air from an engineering standpoint, from a programming standpoint, and from a financial standpoint.
So bless them for everything that they did to keep people like me who was just interested in being the talent, if you will. On the air to do my job and do what I needed to do.
JAG: And we're covering a lot of that other stuff in other episodes of the podcast, but today we are here to talk about you Kendall, and I've gotta imagine that in your on-air career, those moments, like all of a sudden morning show co-host doesn't show up.
All of a sudden dance jam host doesn't show up. I've gotta imagine that has served you well in your on-air career over the past 30 years or so.
Kendall: Yeah. That's one of those lessons that I learned is there's a rap song by the artist, Sugar Free, and it goes, "if you stay ready, you ain't got to get ready." And I've taken that and I've seen so many times throughout my career that's the stance you have to take.
And anybody going into anything that they really want to do is prepare for that moment. Because the crew with the Jim Gallagher, the Dance Jam to come in and. Be a part of a newly formed crew with somebody someplace. Some things that you didn't really have any kind of synergy with. The same thing happened to me when I got my first professional job in Greensboro at 102 JAMZ, WJMH.
It's so spooky how similar it is. The morning show producer didn't show up one morning, my first professional job out of Syracuse, a year after I graduated. I moved across the country again, moved from Los Angeles to North Carolina to do overnights. 12 to 5:30 in the morning for $12,000 a year. But I did it cuz it's what I wanted to do.
And one morning the producer didn't show up. I stayed around for the morning show. Did the producer things because I had that education from Z89 from doing crazy morning crew. So I knew what was needed in that sense. The second time he didn't show up, that was when I got the producer job at the morning show.
That's when I stopped doing overnights and became the bona fide morning show producer.
JAG: When the morning show hours were actually an improvement to your schedule.
Kendall: Much more of an improvement. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, that's part of the thing that I really take with me from JPZ is being ready at any time to take that leap, because when you don't, that opportunity could pass you by.
I could talk for hours about how many times this happened throughout my career, but those are just a couple.
JAG: So take me through your career. So you started in Greensboro, you started overnights, you end up producing the morning show. Where do you go from there?
Kendall: So in Greensboro I produced the morning show and I also became assistant promotions director.
So you can imagine those hours. You're up at four o'clock in the. Producing the morning show and then who knows, there's a remote here, there's an event here, and that could be anywhere from noon to two or from four to six in the afternoon. So it was a little nutty to begin with, but I was young and dumb at that time. I was 22, 23 years old. You don't need as much sleep at 22, at 23, and you can survive on fast food and everything else.
Yep, yep. And I did fun story about some of those promotions things. One of our promotions was called Friday Night Live. And we used to take the van out with the night personality. The Bushman, who was in Detroit.
JAG: Oh man. Bushman I worked with him at Clear Channel in Detroit. Great guy.
Kendall: Yeah. Bushman was our night guy at the time. And we would take the van out on Fridays and just go to random parking lots, open up the van, play the music, and have people come out and get food. And one of the food vendors was Bojangles.
Anybody who's lived down south for a while, they know Bojangles. So I recall because I was not making a bunch of money, I would take some of those Bojangles sandwiches home with me. And use 'em throughout the week. I would scrape off the mayonnaise and the lettuces from the sandwiches and put the chicken patties in the freezer and warm 'em up that's my protein for the week and get some ramen noodles or some rice, and I'm good to go.
JAG: That is as radio a story as it gets, Kendall B.
Kendall: Serious radio stuff. So after a while, Bushman leaves Greensboro and goes to Detroit where he's been for years. And the night show was open, which is the spot that I had really wanted to begin with when I went into Greensboro. And the program director said, all right, it's your chance to do it. And I took it on in 95. It was Kendall B's Night Train.
It was hip hop heaven. Flamethrower. Biggie, Tupac, WuTang, all that. That's what it was. And the emergence of southern hip hop, it was just an amazing. To be doing a night show when night shows really mattered to radio stations. And it was so much fun. But after that, after a while, and I also got my sports in, because I also did sideline reporting for North Carolina A&T University because the station had a contract with the University. So I came in and started doing sideline reporting for them. So I was doing quite a few things and also became assistant program director. So juggling all kinds of balls there.
Eventually you get that itch you'd like, I wanna move, I want to do something. And I applied for so many different things. I applied to go to a station in Denver, which was KS 1075. And I applied for the night show because I knew that I could do the night show. I knew that was my thing. So after a while I didn't hear anything back, and sadly, in 99 what happened was Columbine, right in Denver and everything. Any links that I had to go there, it shut down.
The program director at the time, Cat Collins, says, hey, I like your information. Can't do anything right now. Turnaround. All of a sudden, out of the blue, November of 99, he calls me and says, I don't have nights open, but I got middays. Do you want it? And I had to think about it for a second. I can get closer to home. I can get to a bigger market. Okay, let's do it. So on a wing and a prayer, it was like a two week turnaround, two weeks notice. I put in my notice and packed up all my stuff and moved to Denver, another city where I'd never been. To another city with snow. Imagine that. So I get to Denver, I do Middays, and there was a lunchtime show called The Back in the Day Cafe.
Which Cat Collins let me, essentially let me program. He said, okay, here's the music, here's what we got. We're doing, eighties and disco or whatever it was at the time. And so this is in my wheelhouse. I can do this. So I essentially took requests and programed my own shows. I kept a binder of all the songs I played and when I played them, and that was fun.
That was the highlight of that. Eventually there was some changes at the radio station. There was a morning show that was there and there were some contract issues. Again, that whole parallel of staying ready. Yeah, because I had done the crazy morning crew because I had produced a morning show in Greensboro.
I can do this. I can be an anchor on this. In market 18. So I did this as a part-time thing because somebody was out just filling in. And then all of a sudden, one day Cat comes to me and say, Hey, we're letting Rick and Jennifer go. And then we're keeping Larry, Rick and Jennifer were like the main two.
Larry was also on the show at the time. We need you to come in and just fill in. August 1st. 2001 is when I got thrown in there as a fill-in. And I stayed for 17 years. A permanent fill in. We established the Larry, Kendall, and Kathy Show, and we had so many cool memories there and did so many big things.
And people still talk about that show to this day. People say that, hey, I miss you on KS. That's been like five years ago since I left that station. That just shows you the impact that we had on the market in that community there. So that was a lot of fun to do. That show, even with the stressors of doing mornings and all that kind of stuff.
That's all there. But I really feel honored and privileged to have done that show for as long because that's what I really wanted to do. So morning radio contracts came up at a certain point and there was, there were some conflicts between me and the other team members with just how things worked out.
And so I was let go first and then they were let go and I was kind of dangling, on the beach. Got the Ziggy on that one as Professor Rick would say. But right around the corner was another broadcaster in Denver, was Max Media and the GM at the time, Jeff Norman said, hey, I want you on my station.
I said, hey, that's cool, but I got a six month non-compete on top of the three months I gotta sit out to end my contract. So I had to wait nine months in order to work for him without getting into any legal issues. And I also told him, Hey, not for nothing. I really want to go home. I wanna go to Los Angeles.
My wife and I had made the decision we're selling our house. We're moving back home. For family reasons, for quality-of-life reasons. And he said, okay, you can do the show remotely and you can come back for big events. When he told me that, I said, sure, if you could wait until September till my contract stuff is up, let's go.
JAG: That was 2017, so that's even before covid remote stuff was just starting to happen.
Kendall: Yeah, I was covid proved before Covid happened. Cause I was doing a show back to Denver every single day for the most part, for five years, except for the times that I was actually in the station, which was quite a few times a year, at least once every other month.
I was there for a week. On top of that, during my sabbatical, I got linked up with Futuri Media, which is a very influential company as far technology goes with radio and now into other forms of media. And I started writing, which is something that I knew I could do, but I didn't know I could do that well.
And I started writing show prep for them, for their Topic Pulse service. So I started doing that and because I had a contact there, somebody used to work with in Greenboro, Chris Abrams, who's now programming in New Mexico, and he said, hey, you're good at writing, but I need you to do some more stuff.
I said, okay, what else? I need you to help me train some of these stations to use our products. And it's always been an inclination of mine to teach. And that raised so many ideas in my head. So I started teaching how to use Topic Pulse, how to use their podcast service, Post. How to use their mobile app, all these things.
I became that guy and it was something that I never thought I would walk into as far as this business goes, but it has definitely been a plus for me because it's shown me more of the business side and it's also shown me that I can do other things other than being on the air, even though that's my love and my joy being a broadcaster.
JAG: What you said is so important because I know with the climate of TV and radio, a number of on-air folks on both sides have gotten off the air recently and I feel like it's so often. I've had a conversation with one where they're like, geez, all I know is being on the air. Like I don't know how to do anything else.
What else would I do? And I had to discover with this for myself a couple years ago too. Being on the air, going back to what you learned at JPZ, but all throughout your career as well, you know how to think quickly on your feet. You know how to communicate. You essentially know how to write because you're writing the show prep, you're writing the show.
When you're on the air to begin with. People who are on the air have so many skills that they don't even realize they have until somebody grabs 'em by the shoulders and shakes them and says, you can do this too. So I'm so glad you said that.
Kendall: Yeah. There are so many skillsets that I took. My time at JPZ and then just other things that I've done and being on the content creation broadcast side on the air being a "DJ" or on-air personality.
I've thought those things too. It's what else can I do? But then getting into the Futuri side of this, I said, oh, I can do a whole lot more. I really can, even though my first love will probably always be broadcasting and doing a show. It doesn't have to be my main thing all the time. That's what I can take from that.
Hopefully give to somebody else that might be going through that struggle. All the things you've done on the air or promotionally marketing, selling, all those things you can do for different people. And quite frankly, they might pay you more than what you got paid at the radio station.
JAG: You did start at 12 grand a year in Greensboro.
Kendall: Right? They might pay you a lot more.
JAG: One of the things that I think is really to your credit, Kendall, in getting to know you have more the last couple years. How smart you are when it comes to pivoting and always seeing what's next. You were able to do a show remotely before even Covid.
You were able to pivot and do all these different things and write and work with Futuri and Post and all these things. And what you're doing now is also cutting edge too, right? With the new show.
Kendall: Yeah. So you mentioned at the top that, I got a chance to say goodbye to my Denver audience.
So what happened there was there was a change in, some programming management and they decided to go another way. Although I probably could have stayed at that station JAMN 1015 in Denver the rest of my career. Cause I loved the music, loved the atmosphere. They decided to go another way.
So what they did, and I do give them respect for this, they let me have a final show. And like you mentioned, most on-air personalities don't get that if they're being let go. If you're retiring, sure. If you're being let go, heck no because they don't want you, talking about the company or anything.
They let me have that show. I essentially programmed my final show music wise and everything, and it turned out to be quite the doozy.
JAG: We'll link to the YouTube video in the show notes by the way.
Kendall: Yeah, and I, had my last break, I put it up on my YouTube channel, which I also started this year, just doing some things.
But then, so I get off the air on that Friday afternoon, it was September the second, and I feel complete. Everything is done, and then I just start looking at what else I wanna do. Now I do have the Futuri position that I'm still doing, so that. Bringing me, good vibes, good income and everything like that.
But obviously when you lose some income, you wanna try to fill it up with something else at some point. So I'm still looking for that thing, but then all of a sudden, I'm watching Thursday Night Football on Amazon and they run this ad, I think it was with Little Yachty that talked about Amp.
What is amp? Amp is a social media slash broadcasting service. A combination between Twitter spaces, a podcast, a clubhouse, and a radio station. It's all that mixed together.
JAG: I think it's already lasted longer than Clubhouse, right?
Kendall: Yes, exactly. So I saw it. I'm like, wait a minute, this is two weeks after I got let go in Denver.
I saw this and I showed it to my wife. I said, I could probably do my show again on this app, and I have all the equipment. I just gotta plug it in and get into the app. And she said, you should do it. I said, okay, I'll wait till we get back from our anniversary trip to Mexico. She said no, you should start next week.
JAG: Your wife said that you're, as opposed to the anniversary trip to Mexico? Okay.
Kendall: That's why I call my wife, my executive producer because she's much smarter at a lot of these things than I am.
JAG: I tell all of my single friends, do what I did. Marry somebody smarter than you.
Kendall: That's right. That's right. Yes. So she said, Nope, start next week. We'll take the week off after that and then you can go.
So AMP is amazing for me because I have so much freedom to do essentially the show that I want to do now. Yes, there are some limitations as far as some music and you know how we traditionally do radio and segways and sweepers and things like that.
But it's okay because I can tell the stories how I want to tell them without a program director looking down the hallways like, hey, that was 10 seconds too long or you shouldn't talk about those kinds of things. And I can also play the music I wanna play. It's a variety type of week. I have different themes for different days.
I can play R&B, classic hip hop. That's the base. But I also, on Wednesdays, I do what I call Wild Card Wednesday, where I open up the floodgates for any kind of musical genre and really cut loose and let loose. So it really is providing me freedom. And Jag, here's the thing that really spoke to me.
My wife, who is my rock, she told me. After hearing me do these shows on Amp said, this is the happiest I've heard you on radio in years. Which is amazing. I thought I was okay. I thought it was, I thought I sounded happy. I thought I sounded fulfilled, but I guess I really wasn't because I wasn't really telling the stories like I wanted to tell them playing all the music I wanted to play.
And that's what this does. And at this point, several months in, it's more than just a holdover for me until the next thing. It's kind of something that I want to make sure that builds up and gets stronger to see where it can go because it's obviously backed by a big corporation. Amazon, see what they do, and this is like maybe like a ground level thing with YouTube.
YouTube started here and then they sure took off. This could be like ground level for this kind of broadcasting, this kind of content creation, and then that'll take off a whole other level. So I'm really having a good time doing it. I don't have to get up early in the morning anymore to do this, but I do, because I love what I do.
JAG: So it's live during AM drive on the West coast?
Kendall: It's AM Drive West Coast, 6:00 AM So I'm up at 5:00 AM doing show prep, getting music together. I pick my own music, I get my own topics that I wanna talk about, and I go usually for about two, two and a half hours because I have my other work to do for Futuri.
In the meantime, in between that I'm doing this show, which is not only brought people from Denver that used to listen to me back in, but people from across the country that I didn't know. So I'm doing my own version of syndication, which is crazy. I'm reaping the benefits of that by building another audience and hopefully people that hear that can say, hey, I like what this guy's doing.
Let me hear some more. And maybe somebody who is out there for some, forward thinking broadcaster or whatever could say, hey, this guy can do this, and so on and so forth. And maybe that could be the next thing. Or maybe I just stay at AMP for as long as I can and see how that goes.
JAG: So on the technical side of it, just so I understand, cause I'm not as familiar with Amazon's AMP platform, so you can play full songs because you've got access to Amazon's music library so you can play the full songs. And how are listeners interacting with you through the platform?
Kendall: So there's an app. So that's the main way to get in. And right now it's just on iOS devices, Apple devices. However, they have a workaround where you can stream the show on the website onamp.com. So when you're on the air, you can scroll through and find who you're looking for.
And you can also listen to the show on Alexa. Of course, she lights up when I say her name, but you can listen to it on Alexa and anybody can do this, which is the great thing about Amp. This is not just for people who've been in the broadcast industry like you and I, but anybody who wants to get on and play music and talk however they wanna talk, they can do it.
All they need is like a USB microphone, plug it into their phone or their iPad and go. It's so simple. I just happen to have, better equipment than most, just because I needed to. And it makes my show sound a little bit more polished, a little better on the fidelity side. But yeah, it's really interesting that this technology came up at this time, and it's been around since the start of March, but I didn't know about it until September when I needed to know about it. Once I found it, here I go. It's funny how those things work out.
JAG: So what's interesting too is you talk about the farm system for radio. Obviously not you who's been doing this for professionally in a high level for a long time. But those overnight jobs like you had in Greensboro, they don't exist anymore outside JPZ. I don't know where the training ground is. Maybe this is an opportunity for, younger folks listening to get into this and play with this.
And maybe they get discovered by, radio programmers in places. Just maybe they're getting found on YouTube and TikTok. Maybe this is the next place for them. And then a place for seasoned professionals like you to do a show without, like you said, a program director standing over your shoulder.
Kendall: That's a great observation about younger talent wanting to do something because yeah, those opportunities, aren't there. So if you have a person who gets into a radio station, if there's even still internships, cause I know a lot of stations don't even have those anymore, but if they get in, say they're doing part-time promotions but they're not ready to get on the air yet, the AMP app is a great way for those people to get on and do their own show and to provide themselves with the proper training and the proper chops to say, okay, this is how I wanna sound.
This is how I want to do. And air check themselves or have somebody else do it for them. It really is a good opportunity for them to do that. And yes, for the folks in the radio industry, it's another way for them to look down instead of just, saying I'm gonna get this influencer. This influencer may not be who you need for on the air.
JAG: Exactly. I wish radio people would know that. Just cuz they have 2 million followers on TikTok doesn't mean they can put a coherent sentence together on a microphone. Doesn't mean they can translate on the air and really connect with a listener.
Kendall: And I've told people this all the time, if you can go and sit in a closet for an hour and kind of talk to yourself, you can probably do this. That's what it takes. I mean it really does because you're interacting with people and I think you asked earlier how people interact with me. They're in the app.
There's a chat function and there's actually call-in features in the app where people can talk to you that way. I don't use it that much because I like to just barrel through and do what I do, but I do take comments from the chat and go back and forth with them so I have a good relationship with the people who are coming in on a daily basis.
JAG: Kendall, I always ask people on the show that have worked in radio or are working in radio, briefly, what your take is on the industry where it sits right now? There are a lot of people who are calling for the death of radio like they have been for a hundred years, but where do you see it right now?
A lot of big companies have had a lot of cuts lately. Some of the small companies are doing some stuff too, but where do you see just generally the state of the business right now?
Kendall: It's meh. How can I say it? I guess that's the easy way. It's meh. Because there's so much opportunity that's there that I don't think companies are taking advantage of.
I could easily say we should go back to the good old days, but sometimes the good old days, it isn't the best thing. And when I say good old days, as far as building around those three pillars that I think we all were taught, morning show, marketing and music. And I don't think that stations are building around those three as much anymore now. Yeah, times have changed. Are people waking up and using radio as a vehicle as they used to or as a medium? Maybe not. But still it's all about getting attention and I think that too many companies, too many radio stations are not grabbing our attention.
There are way too many other outlets like you mentioned. Amp, but forget that. You've got YouTube. You've got Spotify, you've got Apple, you've got podcasts, your business too. You have all these things that people can reach out to throughout the day that are outside of the radio, and it's so much easier to access those things.
Now you can plug it into your car and go and not turn on a radio. There are cars where you have to search for the doggone radio. That's the problem I think we have as a radio industry is that we're not capturing the attention of the general crowd. We need to do more things to stand out. We need to have big marketing things that aren't just, a concert that's once a year, that's in one place that sends, maybe three listeners to, you can't do that . Let's get into the, let's get into the crux of this thing. Let's do big ideas. Let's do things that are gonna capture attention. Let's not be so tight and stringent on these playlists because you've got so many other ways that people are getting their music.
If you're gonna be a music format, Let's open this up a little bit so that people can say, Hey, that's a moment. We have to think about these moments. And that's the moment that'll make me come back to here instead of hearing this song for the 300th time this week. Hey, that's a song I haven't heard. I like this song.
Let me come back and see if they're gonna play something else. And from a talk standpoint, it's the same thing. We have to get into these big ideas. We have to stop playing the old playbook, and people are 10 years ahead of us in radio. We really need to update our thinking or else it's going to just shrink.
It's not gonna ever go away, I don't think. But it's just gonna keep shrinking in the consciousness because kids, a few kids turn on the. and that's the problem. Our audience is older and if you want to get into that next generation, you've gotta get them coming back for some way somehow. And I think those are some of the issues that we have to deal with as an industry.
I don't think it's ever gonna go away, cuz it's still gonna be a medium where we need to have it for news and information and things like that. But we're not exciting like it used to be. It really is almost not fun in some places. So there are some stations doing a great job. But there are a lot of others, probably the majority of 'em, that seem like they're not having fun anymore and we need to bring that back.
JAG: Very well said. And that goes back to almost what your wife said about your radio show is having that freedom and being creative and having fun, finding that fun factor. I think that is so well said. Before I let you go, Kendall, any relationships you've kept through the years from JPZ or funny stories you can remember from behind the scenes at the station?
Kendall: Okay, several. Let me get to the funny story. So when I was doing Dance Jam, we were not getting serviced on some of these songs. And again, you look at 1989 to 1992 and just the proliferation of, hip hop is building and some of these R&B acts are coming through, and we weren't getting those records sent to the station.
So what did I do? I of course had a setup in my room and my stereo, I had a TV. And I had a recording device. I would record music off of Video Jukebox when they played the videos cuz that was, for those that don't know, Video Jukebox was on some UHF channel in Syracuse and you would call a 900 number pay 99 cents to have the video played.
So some videos kept playing over and over. So I remember one song in particular, it was Digital Undergrounds, Do What You Like. We didn't have it and I wanted to play it, so I recorded it on my tape deck in my room, brought it to JPZ, brought it to the production room, and played it off a cassette.
I didn't put it on a cart, but I played it off a cassette and there were several times where I had to, in the Watson studio, had to hit a drop, hit a sweeper, run to the production room, and hit play on the tape that, because I didn't have a song, and so that is just crazy to think about it on those nights and those days, whether there was nobody else there, that's what I would've to do.
Another funny story is, This is full on OG DJ stuff before we had computers. When nature calls. And I remember one time nature called and I had to go, I had to answer. So what do you do? It was Saturday night. There was nobody else there at that particular point, and I grabbed out of the crate, Rappers Delight, 15 minutes of Rappers Delight. And I played the entire, it fit in the programming since it fit in Dance Jam.
So it was 15 minutes of the old school classic rappers delight from Sugar Hill Gang, and it gave me plenty of time to race down the hallway. Take care of what I needed to take care of, come back and the song still had five minutes left. So that, that is OG old school stuff.
JAG: If you worked in radio in the nineties or two thousands and don't have a story like that with a long song, you haven't worked in radio in the nineties or two thousands,
Kendall: you haven't done it, you haven't done it.
I will say there's a couple of levels. To your other question, as far as lifelong friendships and relationships, I have to say that I am so proud and thankful for the relationship I have with Shanti Das and Dion Summers. Because both of them came after me and both of them came in to the Dance Jam on Z89, as fresh faces as wanting to do things with that show.
And you gotta know Jag, at that particular time in Syracuse, there was no other outlet playing the kind of music we were playing, right? We're playing Public Enemy and a Tribe called Quest, and artists like that. And you had these students that have come from New York and Atlanta and Baltimore, and Detroit, that they were used to hearing these kinds of things.
They get to Syracuse, they don't hear 'em. So at least for once a week, the students and then the city at large could hear this music and people like Shanti who had already done like internships in Atlanta and we know her dossier working for LaFace and all these kinds of things. She came in and was doing so many things and then Dion also coming in at a very young level and doing Dance Jam things and we see where his career has gone to. So I'm just honored to know them and be like a mentor to them. I just unlocked the door. They walked right through and did what they had to. So that was pretty amazing. I mentioned Chris Lindsay and Matthew Berry, Adam Shapiro, lifelong friends, Josh Abrams who just basically, he did news and some other things at station.
But we become long friends, AJ Mass, who also works for ESPN now. Those are people that I connect with on so many levels nowadays. And Kelly Foster Shapiro. Yeah, there's so many names I could run through and I hate to miss. But those are ones that really come through. Dan Kramer and Matt Friedman at that point too.
Just so many great people. People like you and Lippy, gosh, T-Bone, Mike Tierney, who was big in, in my era. There's so many people like that who I may not have talked to in a while, but they meant so much at the time. Tons of people and you always hate to leave somebody out.
JAG: I'm not gonna play you off the stage of music or anything like that, so you're good.
And I love what you said about Dion because it talks about the tradition of teaching throughout the generations at JPZ, because Dion's gonna be a future guest in the podcast and because so many people have cited Dion as a mentor and someone they learned from, and it's great to take it back a step and see that you mentored him and let him in as a freshman, and just how that cycle has perpetuated for 50 years, and I just think that's a wonderful place to leave it.
Kendall: Yeah. There's so many stories in the history of WJPZ and this podcast. Is gonna remind people of some things that they may have forgotten or share the things that they did not know. And it just makes the legacy so much better and it really reveals it. I think you mentioned it in one of the earlier additions.
It's we are a family and even if we go for weeks, months, years now, talking. To each other. Whenever somebody in the JPZ family does something, we're like, yeah. And that might not have been my crew. It might have been class 92, might have been class of 2002, might have been 82. We see somebody from JPZ doing something.
We're like yeah, that's my people. And it makes us feel warm. It makes us feel like we've accomplished something even though it's somebody else who did it. And this classroom, this media classroom, this special place, means a lot to so many people.
JAG: One big, happy, successful, proud family Kendall B, thanks so much for your time today.
Kendall: Thanks, Jag. Appreciate it.