KAZI 88.7 FM Moves to ACC Highland, Expands Programming

Reno Dudley didn’t know the sign was going up when he walked into the Austin Community College Highland campus one day in May. On his way into the studio, he just happened to catch those bold letters finally taking their place on the outside of the building: KAZI 88.7 FM.

"I sat there and I was like, ‘Oh, wow, we really did this,'" Dudley told the Statesman recently. "‘We really pulled this off.’"

The sign reveal was the last step in a 6-year transition for Austin’s only Black community radio station. The station, funded by donations from listeners and commercial sponsorships, produced a fine blend of fresh music and educational talk shows from its old location in East Austin. But Dudley – the station manager, and one of four paid employees at the volunteer-powered station — said the ACC location primes KAZI to start expanding.

With an in-house podcast studio, the space was designed with the changing media landscape in mind. "As we look to branch out KAZI into different arms aside from being just radio, we have the ability and the facilities to do it," Dudley said.

In comparison to the old location, the ACC studio has more space, better equipment and soundproofed rooms.

"It’s like moving from an apartment to a house," KAZI program director Cedric Turner said.

What else is changing at KAZI?

The ACC location isn’t the only new thing at the station. Dudley is introducing a system where the station will go through a "refresh" every six months as the members of the community submit show ideas.

Historically, the program schedule stayed the same year after year. Aspiring programmers had to wait for an established host or DJ to leave and open up a time slot, creating a backlog of people with show ideas who couldn’t get on the air. When Dudley became station manager in September 2024, he saw an opportunity to increase diversity among talk show hosts and music genres.

One of the new shows the station added just before the location change is "Traffic Jam," which goes from 4 to 7 p.m. most weekdays and is run by Chas Moore. While Moore mostly mixes music for the show, he also reads the headlines for local, national and global news. For him, it’s a good way to bridge the lighter side of KAZI and his activism as the founder of the Austin Justice Coalition.

Although KAZI’s shows don’t push political opinions, they do promote civic engagement through education.

"The fact that people trust me and they want me to talk about certain things means the world to me," Moore said.

He only expected to be on the air for a couple months. "Now I look forward to every day," he said.

KAZI has grown with the Austin community

While KAZI has an eye to the future, it is still connected to its roots. For 10 years, Natomi Blair, the station’s chairwoman of the board, hosted the morning show "Wake-Up Call," originally hosted by the station’s founder John Warfield.

KAZI introduced Blair to Austin when she moved to the city in 2006. She began hosting "Wake-Up Call" two years later, becoming one of the first women to ever host the show.

Blair advocated for the location change when the idea first came up in 2019. She described it as "future-proofing" the station.

"We needed to take this opportunity to have KAZI rise to the occasion of its legacy," Blair said. "We have been in Austin for almost 43 years."

KAZI’s technical manager Marion Nickerson has been around since the beginning. He began volunteering at the station only days after it went on the air in 1982, running errands and cleaning equipment. He ended up serving as station manager twice before handing off the position to Dudley.

Between having kids, grandkids and another job at Austin Community Television, Nickerson still found time to volunteer at KAZI.

"Management could always count on me to help out wherever they needed help, because I just enjoy doing it," Nickerson said. "Plus, I was like any other DJ — I like hearing myself on the radio."

Over the decades, Nickerson has seen the station evolve. He remembers when KAZI exclusively played gospel, R&B and jazz instead of the mix of hip-hop, rap, blues and even Bollywood the station plays today.

Nickerson has never been afraid of what the future holds. For most of its time on the air, KAZI has only had a 30-mile broadcast radius, in comparison to a bigger station like KUT, which has a range of about 97 miles.

Despite its smaller size, KAZI has managed to stay afloat by growing local artists and adapting to new technology. In his second stint as manager in 2022, Nickerson supervised the station’s transition to social media and streaming platforms to reach a wider audience. Now with the help of the new studio, he’s involved in KAZI’s expansion into podcasting.

"Our listeners are so loyal," Nickerson said.

"We offer something for everyone."