The Voice of Kansas City: Tony G on Black Radio, Community & Building a Lasting Legacy

So there was a time in Kansas City when everybody knew the voices on your station.

You weren't just somebody people listened to.

People felt like they knew you.

What was it like being Tony G during that era?

Wow.

It...

It felt good, but I also felt that I had a responsibility.

Okay.

Growing up in the inner city, I wanted people to see that they too could make it at something if they put their mind to it.

Yeah.

And like I said, growing up in inner city, people looked up to me.

I could always go back to the hood.

It wasn't a place that I couldn't go, that I wasn't respected because I respected others, even though I came from where I came from, I still respected others.

And I still respected those people that I grew up with.

And so with that, PBS recently described you as one of the first superstars to come out of KPRS live radio air.

When you hear something like that now, how does it make you feel?

It makes me feel honored.

But at the same time, I have to step back and say, those DJs that I named before me, those were the guys that I looked up to.

When I say Chris King, Dale Rice, Freddie Bell, those names were electrifying on the radio.

those names were the people that you ran home and listened to the radio after you got out of school.

So for my name to be amongst those names, yeah, I feel real honored, feel real honored.

So you were a part of the golden era of black radio in KC.

And we know social media has kind of changed a lot with radio and things like that and all the streaming platforms.

But before social media, a radio personality could tell people where they were going to be and suddenly everybody wanted to be there.

How powerful, help our younger viewers understand, how powerful was radio in shaping what was hot in Kansas City, where people went, what they did, what music broke, and even what people were talking about in Kansas City?