This Black History Month we’re sharing stories about community, memory, and why radio preservation matters in Legacy Listening: HBCU Radio Memories, our series featuring excerpts from oral histories collected by the HBCU Radio Preservation Project.
This week we meet Dr. Morakinyo Kuti, a 1985 Central State University alumnus and current president of the University, who shared his radio memories with Will Tchakirides, the HBCU Radio Preservation Project’s Assistant Director of Public History and Programming, in August of 2025.
Interview Highlights:
Growing up in Nigeria with a love for music
"I was born in a city called Ibadan, in southwestern Nigeria. I moved to Abeokuta when I was about seven years old. We had a main house. We had what you would call a boys quarters. Then we had a guest house. And, it was just a joyous place because little traffic came down our road. So we had everything we wanted in that compound. Couldn't ask for any more.
When I went to high school, we had cassette tapes. And my friend and I were known to have probably the biggest music collection. Back then it was Fela Anikulapo Kuti, a musician called Ebenezer Obey, who was also from Abeokuta, a very popular Juju musician. Sunny Ade, Prince Abiodun."
Learning humanities at Central State
"I had a professor, Marvin Hare, and he's the one that helped us start listening to music like Gil Scott Heron, that the revolution would not be televised, John Coltrane, and all these other musicians that talked about social work and things like that. So it was in those humanities classes that we developed a much greater understanding of the African American experience, and truly enabled us to appreciate what an HBCU was and how we were blessed to come to Central State University."
Bringing a love of music onto WCSU
"I always said to myself, very few people have the musical collection and variety that I have. And then I think it was 2018 or 2019, I'm sitting with the radio station manager and I'm going on and on and about this radio program that I thought I would have.
He said, yeah, you're talking about it. Why don't you come over and do it? I go over there, get in the studio, practice for an hour, and that was all she wrote. The name of the program was My Favorite Things. I had Bossanova from Brazil, jazz, Afrobeat, Juju music, classical music, I had rock, pop, religious music. I had rap, reggae, dance hall, the Bob Marley type, then I had the Shabba Ranks"
Listen to our full interview with Morakinyo Kuti and other oral histories from the HBCU Radio Preservation Project on YouTube in collaboration with our partners at the Margaret Walker Center.
