Entertainment

Black community radio boosts local artists

THE WEEKLY CHALLENGER — Local musicians are gaining exposure on south St. Pete’s own WBPU 96.3 FM, also known as “Black Power 96.” The station’s weekly Local Going Global contest invites listeners to vote for their favorite local artist.

Published

7 years ago

June 11, 2019

TWC

By The Weekly Challenger

ST. PETERSBURG — Local musicians are gaining exposure on south St. Pete’s own WBPU 96.3 FM, also known as “Black Power 96.” The station’s weekly Local Going Global contest invites listeners to vote for their favorite local artist.

Hundreds of votes are counted each week, most from St. Pete residents, but also from listeners as far away as New York and Colorado who tune in through the station’s mobile app and web stream. Local Going Global shows how a small community radio station can help local artists find a big audience.

Local Christian/gospel rapper BLA (Bruce Loves the Almighty) was the first contest winner. He writes rhymes and produces his own tracks. He is a husband to his lovely wife Tessa, cuts hair, sings in two choirs and serves as Bethel Metropolitan’s Sunday School department superintendent under the direction of Rev. Dr. Ricky L. Houston. He performed on the Black Power 96 soundstage at St. Petersburg’s MLK Day this year.

BLA said his music “offers a lyrical message inspired by God over sultry melodic tunes with the low-frequency bass rumble of today’s popular trap songs.” He relates the gospel message to everyday personal struggles.

“Every day another person is dealing with pain in some way, shape or form whether it be the pangs of addiction, homelessness, a lack of self-identity or just a genuine need to hear the truth,” he said. “We should also acknowledge God when things are going well for us, too.”

Next up was local performing group, the GBT Babies. Aprincea, 10, Zy’cariah “Princess Zy,” 8, and Daegeana, 10, are cousins whose parents were local St. Petersburg rap artists. GBT was the name of the group their parents were a part of: Gutta Beezy, now known as Aprincea’s father, Josh (aka Hot Wheels), and Tank, Zy’cariah’s mom, Quaniesha.

GBT Babies also performed on MLK Day at Black Power 96.3’s Free Da Mic event. Last month they traveled to St. Louis to perform at a conference of the African National Women’s Organization where they were enthusiastically received. Under the tutelage of their manager, “Cheese,” GBT Babies’ original songs such as “Why U Mad?” and “No More Bullying” bring a positive message with a catchy beat.

Another winner of the Local Going Global contest was V.O.C.A.L.E. (Voices on Christ and Lyrical Expressions). This local group combines elements of praise and a variety of genres including gospel, R&B, hip-hop, jazz, spoken word and neo-soul to create, as they say “music that touches on the problems that many people face every day and the remedy to those problems, which is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

V.O.C.A.L.E. members Manuel Allen (spoken word artist AKA Finale), vocalist Jaylissa Golden (Lady Jay) and vocalist Larry Young (Deacon Soul) write their own songs. Finale is an ordained minister born in Cincinnati and raised in Chicago. Lady Jay was born and raised in St. Petersburg, where she follows in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother who sang in the church choir. Deacon Soul was born and raised in Detroit, where he was inspired to sing while listening to his mother rehearse with her R&B and gospel groups.

Crunkcoco has held Black Power 96’s Local Going Global title for four consecutive weeks. Born Courtney Fraser in St. Pete, he gained popularity on YouTube when he posted videos shot with a school camera in the classroom.

His “Who You Finna Try” video went viral, and he has since appeared in Cristol’s music video and on “WorldStarHipHop” 12 times. He’s been on “Upload with Shaq,” truTV, as well as on BET’s “106 & Park,” MTV’s “Ridiculousness” and on “The List.”

The free-spirited Crunkcoco is known for his over-the-top dancing in which he puts his extreme flexibility on display, often wrapping one arm around his head. He has been on stage with K. Michelle and Cardi B, City Girls and Da Brat.

“I’m cool with celebrities Cardi B, Safaree, Nicki Minaj, K. Michelle and Trina,” said Crunkcoco, who just released a new single called “Like That” featuring Heather Marie.

Winners of Black Power 96’s Local Going Global contest are announced on the air Fridays at 5 p.m. Their songs get placed into heavy rotation on the airwaves and they receive promotion through the station’s website and mobile app along with an award certificate.

The contest is the brainchild of Black Power 96 DJ Eddie “Florida Blind Boy” Maultsby, whose gospel show airs Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 7-9 a.m. DJ Eddie is well-known throughout St. Pete for his years playing guitar and singing on the streets and for his stint on the airwaves of the now-defunct WRXB.

DJ Eddie volunteers at Black Power 96 as assistant station manager and can be heard at many times throughout the week bringing local updates and popular music.

“We are a station of the people,” he said. “I wanted to connect with the people and the artists. I didn’t know this contest would be so popular, but I’m very happy to help the community to get connected.”

Themba Tshibanda, Black Power 96’s station manager, said: “The black community is powerful when we come together. Our talent should belong to us and Black Power 96.3 FM radio is ensuring that our community is heard here in St. Pete and around the world so that artists like these can make music that serves our people and they don’t feel forced to cater to those who mean our community no good.”

Local artists are invited to submit their songs for broadcast on the station through the website at www.blackpower96.org.

Volunteers are needed to help with office work, community outreach, voice work and audio production. Training is available. For more information, call 727-914-3614 or visit the station during business hours at 1245 18th Ave. S, St. Petersburg.

This article originally appeared in The Weekly Challenger.

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Arts and Culture

IN MEMORIAM: Oakland Dance Legend Reginald Ray-Savage, 67

Savage lived his life as tribute to the teachers who had shared their wisdom on art and life with him. With a palpably genuine enthusiasm and desire to bring out the best in people, and pass the torch to the next generation, he poured into his students, as his teachers and mentors had into him. His infectious energy, love of life, and generosity of spirit inspired countless souls, both inside and outside the dance studio.

Published

1 week ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Reginald Ray-Savage brought the old-school teaching techniques he learned in the Katherine Dunham Dance Company to the youth at the Oakland School for the Arts in 2003. Courtesy photo.

Special to The Post

Reginald Ray-Savage – dancer, choreographer, and beloved teacher, mentor, and inspiration to many – passed away on May 17. The Oakland School for the Arts dance instructor was 67.

Born Reginald Ray, Jr. in St. Louis, Missouri, on Sept. 5, 1958, he formally adopted the name ‘Savage,’ to honor the great Archie Savage, his mentor at Katherine Dunham’s Performing Arts Training Center where his dance training journey began in East St. Louis, Illinois.

He soon started dancing professionally with Katherine Dunham Dance Company, making dance a way of life. His grit, tenacity, and notorious work ethic brought him scholarships to train at multiple prestigious dance institutions, including The Ailey School (NYC) and Ruth Page School of Dance (Chicago), under the direction of acclaimed ballet instructor Larry Long and Dolores Lipinski-Long.

He danced with several companies including Joel Hall Dance Company, Ruth Page Ballet Chicago, Lyric Opera, Chicago City Ballet, American Festival Ballet, and touring productions of “Music Man” and “A Chorus Line”.

In 1989, Savage moved to Oakland where he started teaching seven days a week, amassing a devoted following that was attracted to his no-nonsense, impassioned, and effective old-school teaching style.

In 1992, at the insistence of his committed core of students, he founded Savage Jazz Dance Company (SJDC). Over a span of 30 years, Savage produced more than 100 original works, and tour SJDC nationally and internationally, performing at Casa del Jazz in Rome to a packed house and rave reviews—the first dance company to receive such an invitation.

Savage built SJDC into one of the Bay Area’s most respected dance companies, creating a signature style known for its combination of disciplined training, blended with rich artistic musical expression, and raw energy.

In 2003, Savage joined the Oakland School for the Arts as chair of the School of Dance. Over the next two decades, he created, built, and maintained a strong dance program, recognized, and respected by other dance institutions for forging well-trained and resilient dancers and human beings.

The depth of Savage’s tough love and care, and the skill of his teaching and mentoring are reflected in the careers of his students who have gone on to dance with the San Francisco Ballet, Martha Graham Dance Company, Mark Morris Dance Group, Janet Jackson, Ariana Grande, and companies across the globe.

Mark Kitaoka, a photographer hired by Savage in 2016, posted a living eulogy on the dance instructor.

“When I see the self-pride he builds in his students I am constantly impressed that people like Savage still exist in our ‘meme’ society,” Kitaoka wrote. “The kids he mentors are fiercely loyal to one another and I’m certain his methods teach each of those kids to put aside social status, race and gender and is replaced by solid loyalty for other souls.

“What Savage contributes to our world cannot be completely summed up in a few meager paragraphs but can be seen in the countless lives of those he has touched. Because of him, our world, and the world of the future is both a richer and better place.

Reginald Ray-Savage will forever be missed, remembered, and lovingly quoted. He is survived by his beloved wife, Alison Hurley, his sister, Sonia, and his brothers, Pierre, and Andre. May his inextinguishable spirit and impact live on in all the lives he touched.

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Oakland Post: Week of June 17 – 23, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of June 17 – 23, 2026

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June 20, 2026

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Books

Book Review: Something We Said: Richard Pryor, A Notorious Word, and Me

Though sticks and stones and words are weapons, as in the new memoir, “Something We Said” by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, they can also hold people together.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 17, 2026

bpusa-syndication

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, Copyright: c.2026, Publisher: Simon & Schuster, SRP: $29.00, Page Count: 304 pages

Sticks and stones may break my bones.

You know the rest of that childhood rhyme, and you know it’s not true: words have meaning, and they can cut like a knife. And yet, though sticks and stones and words are weapons, as in the new memoir, “Something We Said” by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, they can also hold people together.

The college lecture was supposed to have been about the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.

It was supposed to be a lively discussion, but unintentionally it quickly veered off course. When a White student quoted a movie line featuring the “n-word,” the room went quiet, and Professor Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor panicked.

She’d grown up hearing that word, and seeing it, and she’d experienced the painful feelings attached to it. She knew who wrote that movie line. It was her father, Richard Pryor.

In her first few years, Pryor spent most of her time in a White world, hearing her mother’s tales of her larger-than-life father, and trying to grasp meaning in her father’s albums, peppered as they were with a word that was off-limits to her.

When she was six, she met her father for the first time. She began to visit him regularly.

It was fun at her Dad’s house; though he was sometimes moody, he taught her to fish and play dominoes. She became close with her siblings, fearful of her great-grandmother, and confused about a word that her father’s uncles threw around like a beach ball. It was a forbidden word at her mother’s house, but her father used it. Differently. Often.

The word hurt. She knew first-hand that it did.

“The word became a degrading slur that shackled all Black people together into a single, inescapable tribe,” she says.

So why was it okay for certain people to say it?

Knowing that, in the years since Richard Pryor’s accident and his death from multiple sclerosis, he’s become somewhat of a legend. It is a very satisfying thing, isn’t it? So is reading about him, especially from the viewpoint of one of his seven children. But his is not the only story you get inside “Something We Said.”

Wrapped around the life of Richard Pryor is the life of a word that straddles a line between danger and provocation, a word that author Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor refuses to say or even print. As she tells readers about her father and her loving-but-difficult relationship with him, she warily circles that word, as if it might bite. You may cringe, but she weighs it carefully, helping readers see it as a chameleon before always bringing us back to her father, his work, and his life before and after her and that word.

It’s a push-pull balance that holds readers fast, and keeps them there. It’s perfect for fans of this genre, or Richard Pryor, or of language – and it’s going to make you think. If you want a good memoir this week, one that may send you to your old album collection, “Something We Said” is rock-solid.