How to listen
What: Basim Blunt’s “Behind the Groove” radio show
Where: WYSO-FM (91.3)
When: 10 p.m. Fridays
More info: www.wyso.org
Friday nights recently got a lot funkier on WYSO-FM (91.3). At the beginning of January, Basim Blunt launched a new weekly funk music program, “Behind the Groove,” which airs at 10 p.m. after Rev Cool’s popular “Around the Fringe.”
“Rev Cool still comes on at 8 o’clock, but then I take over at 10,” Basim Blunt said. “I took over what was the second half of his show on his 32nd anniversary, so the torch was sort of passed. Rev read a pledge over the air and made me promise to keep the funk and nothing but the funk, which was symbolic and really cool.”
Blunt, who grew up in Jersey City, N.J., has lived in Dayton since the mid-1990s. He first became part of the WYSO family in 2012 when he participated in the station’s Community Voices program. He won a New Voices Scholar award from the Association of Independents in Radio for his first Community Voices audio documentary, “Boogie Nights: A History of Funk Music in Dayton.”
“I was so excited to bring the story on the Dayton funk scene to my Community Voices piece and it just took off unbelievably,” Blunt said. “I can only thank the musicians from this region for creating this music that was so well received. There has been a buzz. It wasn’t planned. It was just the timing of picking something that people love. People were interested in that piece and it ended up winning an award.”
Blunt followed the funk piece with Community Voices stories on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream’ speech,” the life and death of Leroy “Sugarfoot” Bonner of the Ohio Players and local feedback on the 2012 presidential election. That led to his current daytime gig at WYSO as production coordinator for Julia Reichert and Steve Bognar’s ongoing multimedia series, “Reinvention Stories.”
“Once I took the Community Voices class they couldn’t get rid of me,” Blunt said. “I was bitten by the bug. I love radio and they saw I was coming in even during snow storms and that led to the awesome opportunity to work on ‘Reinvention Stories.’ The new season comes on next month so I’m always there working on these new stories with a team of six producers.
“I was a natural fit for this new show,” he said. “I live in Yellow Springs, I love funk and they knew I had the work ethic, so they’re hoping this will expand WYSO to a whole new group of listeners from the region.”
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