KREM Radio celebrates 20 years
Posted: 20/11/2009 - 10:14 AM
Author: Aaron Humes
The nation’s first private radio station, KREM Radio, celebrated 20 years on the air yesterday, Tuesday, November 17.
On Saturday night in 1989, Belizeans first heard the sound of music just the way they liked it – pulsating punta, strutting rap and hip hop, smooth rhythm and blues – a marked change from the stuffy contemporary music played on the government-owned, heavily-censored, now-defunct Broadcasting Corporation of Belize/Radio Belize.
Over 20 years later, as evidenced from the many dignitaries and ordinary Belizeans that graced the Kremandala compound on Partridge Street on Tuesday afternoon, that liberation of the airwaves is still fondly remembered, and gratefully acknowledged.
Since it’s almost Garifuna Settlement Day, hudut and darasa were the meals of choice, and legendary paranda musician from Punta Gorda, Paul Nabor, topped the list of performers who helped make the celebration memorable.
One of the persons most associated with KREM Radio – and the first voice you usually hear when you call – is Lisa “Love” Kerr, the full-time receptionist and part-time on-air announcer.
Lisa has been with KREM for 15 years, and recalls listening to it surreptitiously while working as a night dispatcher for a local security firm.
“And I realized, no one was coming on at 5 a.m. I always wanted to work on the radio since I was a child, and I approached somebody at KREM and applied, and they took me on.”
She never left, and she told Amandala this afternoon that it’s because “I love what I do.”
“We have gone from cassettes and turntables to CD’s and computers, but the music is always there – punta, slow jams, adult contemporary, we play it all. I used to handle the punta slot (Punta Jam Session, from 11:00 to 12:00 noon) – that’s now handled by (DJ) Anthony Grant; I had the 12:30 to 4:00 slot that Steve (Anthony) now handles, and there is always variety in the programming. Our secret is the variety.”
Another face of KREM is Tony Wright. Wright is an accomplished musician and these days more of an arts and culture activist with the Association for Belizean Artists First (ABAF), but long before Soundfest and even Belizean Beat (9:00-12:00 noon on Thursdays) or the Saturday Morning Special (6:00 to 10:00 a.m.) on Tuesdays, two of his other programs, there was Belize Musicians Past and Present.
The Thursday evening music showcase, though Belizeans might not remember, used to air on Thursday mornings – coincidentally in the 11:00 a.m. slot, beginning on February 2, 1995. The program’s conception, Wright recalled, was partly credited to maestro J.C. Arzu, and partly to this newspaper’s frequent reviews of local artists. After the release of Wright’s “Big Inna Di Country” in 1991, he met J.C. and pitched the idea for what would become Belize Musicians Past and Present.
After the show was green-lighted, it moved to a slot after the evening news, then the current 2-hour event from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. “No local artist thinks about dropping an album before coming on Belize Musicians now,” Wright enthused.
He told us that KREM reaches out to all ages, and is “next to none” in its mix of popular music and personalities.
One of those artists present on Tuesday was Herman “Chico” Ramos, who needs no introduction from us. Chico says that it was a thrill to hear his own music being played on KREM, and “they played everything, they played what people actually liked at the time. It was important that we had something we called our own, that we could hear free and unencumbered.”
For Wil Maheia of Punta Gorda, KREM went truly national in 1996, when it still had only the 96.5 and 89.9 FM signals, when J.C. himself came to town and put up an antenna to catch the signal from Belize City. KREM, now on 91.1 FM (an old Radio Belize signal) and 101.1 FM, is heard nationwide except for Corozal, where it has a partnership with Rainbow FM 107.7.
Two of the programs whose names we kept hearing are the Wake Up Belize Morning Vibes and the Kremandala Show. The former is KREM’s morning program aired from 6:30 to 9:00 weekdays and hosted by Mose Hyde and Sharon Marin, with such former hosts as Kalilah Enriquez, Marshall Nunez and Anne Wade; and the latter is the political commentary, Crossfire-style show begun by Kremandala chairman Evan X Hyde in 1994, and featuring panelists too numerous to mention by name here.
The station also has a news department staffed by three journalists that produces three newscasts and two newsbriefs daily, except for weekends, and some of its programs are streamed over the Internet and on companion KREM Television.
Of course, there have been problems. KREM is currently locked in battle with the giant English billionaire Lord Michael Ashcroft, who earlier this year got the Court of Appeal to grant him 10% of the company’s shares he says were owed to him after the settlement of a loan granted in 1994.
Twice, saboteurs tried to sink the station - attacks were made on its broadcast towers in Baldy Beacon, in the Cayo District, and on the compound itself in Belize City, a set of cables for KREM’s tower was cut from its anchors. To this day, the culprits for either politically-motivated attack have not been brought to justice.
But KREM has persevered, and remains extremely popular with Belizeans all over the country.
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