Louisville’s newest Super-Show, The Turn Up Show with T-Made & Friends, is burning up the radio airwaves on Friday nights. The program airs on WLOU 104.7 FM, from 8 pm – 9 pm every Friday night.
Antonio (T-Made) Taylor, Kanesha Gardner, Nitt Pitino, Audrey D., Pri-Love, De Autry and William Buckner are a close knit group of friends who bring laughter to their diverse audience on a weekly basis while discussing current events that capture the nation.
Antonio (T-Made) Taylor pilots the program which has taken off like a 747 jet and the contributions from his supporting cast make listeners feel as though they are part of a friendly conversation around the office water cooler.
The Turn Up Show operates on the format of revitalizing community involvement and responsibility. T-Made and Friends are committed to offering the world an “Alternative” to the negative hip-hop and radio commentary that plague the majority of the airwaves these days.
The program plays positive music from local and national hip-hop and R&B artists as well as gospel based hip-hop however; the group wants to emphasize that although they operate on a Christian based radio station, the music and commentary is not all Christian based material.
“Right now there is so much negative out there and so much corruption with our youth being poisoned that we want to provide a positive platform…We’ll play a J. Cole, we’ll play a Kendrick Lamar…We played Lil Boosie on our show last week. So we don’t worry about the artist, we worry about the message…As long as your message is in line with what we are trying to send out there, we’ll play you because we think everybody has something positive to say.” -T-Made
All of the crew members are Louisville natives and have extensive backgrounds in the music and entertainment industry which has allowed this program to quickly exceed expectations.
The Turn Up Show debuted on 104.7 FM in Louisville on April 3, 2015, and has expanded to the So Christ-Like (http://www.sochristlike.com/christlike-radio) internet radio station based out of Indianapolis, as well as the Kingdom1.com internet radio station based out of Tyler, Tx.
Additionally there are plans to launch turnupradio.com by September of this year so that fans can have direct access to videos, podcasts, live streaming and information surrounding the program.
The group has also began filming a reality TV show which will air on All Nations TV (http://www.allnationstv.com/). The network will also feature the show on its Roku channel.
Prior to becoming recognizable voices on Louisville’s radio airwaves, T-Made and Nitt Pitino formed a two-man R&B group named “Too Smooth” which was signed to Heavy D & the Boyz back in the mid 1990s. That experience ultimately became the foundation for creating the Turn Up Show.
“The Turn Up Show basically came together based on our backgrounds in music and entertainment. We [T-Made & Nitt Pitino] moved to New York and were signed to Heavy D & the Boyz back in the day…After we saw that the artist thing wasn’t going to work for us we decided to make some paper writing songs and producing…We started writing material and one of the A&R’s from Def Jam heard our stuff, liked us and he invited us to be a part of the “Burn Unit”. They wrote for artists like Montell Jordan, Sisqo, Dru Hill, 112 and others…At the time we worked on the remix with Montell Jordan and L.L. Cool J, “Baby It’s On Tonight”. – T-Made
Years later the pair left New York and began embarking on individual projects in the entertainment industry. Pitino relocated to Atlanta and T-Made returned to Louisville and began co-hosting a local hip-hop TV show called the “Da Show” which aired at midnight on the WB network from 2008-2011.
“Da Show is kind of like the seed to all of this because once I started working on Da Show me and Audrey D. reacquainted with each other. We put unsigned and independent artists on TV and played their videos…We interviewed every celebrity in the world…Lil Wayne was on our show, Rick Ross was on our show…It was based out of Louisville and produced by us. The show was so successful it branched out to the Lexington market and then to several markets in Missouri.” -T-Made
Following Da Show’s three year run a spin-off show called “The Show” was created and was hosted by Audrey D and Kanesha Gardner (currently of the Turn Up Show). “The Show” aired on the CW and Fox networks.
Around the beginning of 2015, T-Made had an epiphany. He had become frustrated with the current state of hip-hip and decided that it was time to take a stand.
“I’m kind of bitter at the industry because they really are poisoning our kids through media and this music…Now hip-hop is good…I love hip-hop but the bad side about hip-hop nowadays is that there’s no balance… It’s all bad, it’s all negative…Now when we were growing up, if we had NWA, we had Public Enemy and X-Klan to counter that…We had Too Short but we also had Heavy D.” – T-Made
With the help of a friend T-Made decided to pitch his idea of a community based positive talk show to the program director of 104.7 WLOU. His friend encouraged the sales representative of the station (Keisha Matlock) to give him a call. After the conversation Matlock arranged a meeting with the station’s program director Bill Price. T-Made pitched his idea and Price decided to take a chance on the show. The Turn Up Show was officially born.
T-Made brought Audrey D. on board and asked Nitt Pitino to return from Atlanta to join the show. The crew feels as though they were definitely brought together by a higher power.
“We all know that this is something that is bigger than us…We know that this is something that is really divine and that this is going to be something that people are going to be able to look back on and maybe have learned something or maybe have gotten something from it…For instance he [T-Made] is playing local positive music…We are creating a positive platform.” -Audrey D.
Pri-Love was already employed with 104.7 WLOU at the time. After a few conversations with T-Made she was blown away because for months she and station engineer De Autry, had discussed starting the same type of program. It was a no-brainer that she joined the crew.
“I thought that I would make a great addition to the team because we shared the same vision. I have a background in radio…I went to school for Communications and always wanted to do radio…I never wanted to do TV…I worked for B96 radio from 2008-2013 and feel as though I have an eye and an ear for music and entertainment.” – Pri-Love
Kanesha Gardner was brought in to handle marketing and PR which made the group complete. The Turn Up Show crew members feel as though they have created an unstoppable force within the music and entertainment industry.
Giving back to the community is the first order of business for this talented group. They are planning to host “The Turn Up Festival” this Labor Day weekend with the goal of feeding 100 children for free.
“The Turn Up Festival is an annual event that we are going to put on every year. We are hopefully going to host it this Labor Day weekend and we are going to be having artists come in from out of town as well as local artists who will be able to perform on stage for the community. We will also be providing free food.” – Kanesha Gardner
Another issue the Turn Up Show would like to address is the high violence and homicide rate in Louisville this year. They would like to extend a friendly request to all local party and concert promoters within the city.
“Currently the homicide rate is double what it was last year…Please do not bring artists to the city that are going to create a violent atmosphere. Please don’t…Have a heart for your city. Don’t do it at a time like this…Maybe you can do it next year or the year after if the violence isn’t so high but don’t contribute to what’s going on.” – T-Made
The Turn Up Show plans to expand to a weekend show in a few months and hopes to eventually become a nationally syndicated radio show. They want to thank the program director of 104.7 WLOU, Bill Price, for taking a chance on the show and providing the city of Louisville with a much needed “Alternative” to the negative programming that currently dominates the airwaves.
Tune in to the Turn Up Show every Friday night at 8pm on 104.7 FM WLOU. The station can also be accessed on the TuneIn radio app on android and iPhone devices.
Brad Harrison is a journalist/motivational speaker/entrepreneur and on-air personality. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications with cum laude honors from the University of Louisville. In October 2015, he started UrbanMaxx Magazine to provide positive role models for Urban residents that reside in at-risk-communities and lack positive leadership in their lives.
For booking or advertising – contact Brad Harrison at bradharrison@urbanmaxx.com