I SEE U

Veteran jazz keyboardist Brian Culbertson has a 25-album discography that offers up his signature sounds of funky instrumentals, sexy soul jams and straight-up, smooth R&B grooves. With a career of delivering some 40 Billboard No. 1 singles, he’s performed and recorded with the industry’s finest – from Stevie Wonder and Bootsy Collins to the late Prince and Maurice White, the founder of the iconic band, Earth Wind & Fire. Culbertson has also earned a very loyal fan base, including online music connoisseurs who follow his weekly YouTube and Facebook hang out sessions. But there’s one entity where music support has dwindled over the years—terrestrial FM radio. Join Host Eddie Robinson as I SEE U continues its ongoing series dedicated to exploring the future of the smooth jazz format and speaks candidly with acclaimed producer and songwriter, Brian Culbertson. The hitmaker from Decatur, Illinois chats about why he believes jazz music discovery is almost non-existent on FM radio and how he, along with countless other musicians, rely on satellite radio and the digital landscape to keep the momentum and energy of the jazz genre afloat.

Brian Greene is President of Houston Food Bank, the largest food distribution bank in the nation. Greene, who once headed the New Orleans food bank, arrived in Houston on the tailwinds of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina when his own Crescent City home flooded with water – only to be pummeled by Hurricane Harvey in 2017, where the first floor of his Houston home took on three feet of storm water. Join I SEE U Host Eddie Robinson as we reflect on one of Houston’s costliest and most devastating natural disasters in the city’s history, five years later, with Houston Food Bank CEO, Brian Greene. We’ll discuss how food recovery operations in Houston and New Orleans compared to each other as well as how he managed to keep both his personal home and family needs in check while addressing major food distribution efforts during Harvey.

A native of Houston’s Third Ward, Derryl Bohanna Sr., knows the importance of being industrious, enterprising and disciplined. A product of the U.S. Army and a father of seven, Bohanna quickly realized he needed to figure out a way to financially support his children. But he also learned some very interesting lessons about the concept of saving money and creating generational wealth—early. Join us as I SEE U Host Eddie Robinson chats candidly with children’s book author, Derryl Bohanna, as he offers up a preview of his recent release, “The Adventures in Moneyland with DeDe, Dez and Dexx.” The self-published author is writing a series of books designed to help kids build a better relationship with money and how to improve decision-making skills as it relates to managing money. Plus, he’ll share his thoughts and perspective on whether or not he believes African Americans will ever achieve financial stability in the future.

P-VALLEY is a provocative drama series on the cable television network, STARZ. The series follows the lives of employees and exotic dancers who work at a strip club in a fictional town in northern Mississippi. The show’s creator and executive producer, Katori Hall, presents a captivating look at the nuances of southern Black culture. P-VALLEY explores the complexities of our humanity – using extraordinary color, piercing dialogue and remarkable cinematography to tell unique stories and narratives often related to notions of race, sexuality and identity. Join I SEE U Host Eddie Robinson for an unguarded chat with Pulitzer-Prize winning writer, Katori Hall, as the Memphis native explains in her own words why this sexually-tinged series has become so popular. Plus, we’ll take a deep dive into how she’s courageously redefining stereotypes and gender norms from stage to screen through distinct, artistic visuals and experiences that pay tribute to a life of hustle and survival in the Deep South.

Acclaimed jazz vocalist and Baltimore native, Maysa Leak, admits to I SEE U that she’s always felt hidden. Starting out as a member of the legendary Stevie Wonder’s background singer entourage, Maysa has been performing in the music business for over three decades. She landed her first lead vocal gig with a British soul collective ironically called, Incognito. But music reps told her she could not appear in a music video for the group because of her weight. And yet, despite her challenges of not having a solid promotional machine to support her career; experiencing a difficult pregnancy while on tour; online search engines erroneously tying her to a dead Brazilian actress and even losing her vocal cords to a roommate’s pet rabbit — Maysa uses her silky, velvet smooth voice as a beautiful instrument of emotion, vulnerability and inspiration throughout her vast discography of music. Join Host Eddie Robinson for this premiere Season 2 episode of I SEE U as he chats candidly with jazz singer-songwriter, Maysa. This episode also kicks off an ongoing series that highlights the music radio format known as Smooth Jazz, where we examine the rich origins of its past and the uncertainty of its future.

In 1981, militant Klansmen in East Texas waged a terror campaign against recently immigrated Vietnamese fishermen who were trying to make a living near Galveston Bay. As tensions heated up, some began to label the conflict a “race war.” But a legal argument brought justice to the vulnerable community of Vietnamese refugees. Join us we take you on a journey through the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico featuring 87-year-old South Vietnamese army colonel, Nguyen Van Nam; his son Michael; and acclaimed author Kirk Johnson. Host Eddie Robinson also chats with the prosecuting attorney of the case, David Berg, as well as the lawyer representing the Ku Klux Klan–Sam Adamo.

A young computer scientist who grew up in Mississippi is focusing her efforts on fairness and identifying biases in technology. Though she’s working in Atlanta as an artificial intelligence researcher for Amazon, she’s reinvesting much of her earnings towards the development of a multi-million dollar innovation center that’s set to transform her native downtown Jackson. Dr. Nashlie Sephus is also CEO of The Bean Path — a non-profit that works to bridge the “tech gap” in communities where access to technical expertise, computer coding and other resources are limited. She speaks candidly with host Eddie Robinson about her experiences in closing commercial real estate deals in the Deep South and how she’s worked in a field of study where there’s not many Black women with PhDs.

Earlier this year in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, singer Stevie Wonder described his plans to move permanently to Ghana, West Africa. Weeks later, comedian Dave Chappelle said he was inspired by Wonder to do the same. There’s a sudden trend of Americans who are leaving the United States and relocating to a foreign country — Americans like the Jones family. 50-year-old Tony Jones, a former Milwaukee police officer, said ‘enough is enough!’ Blaming racism, harassment from law enforcement and rampant discrimination as reasons for the move, Tony and his wife, Ayo — along with their two young boys — left their home in Houston, Texas and relocated to Ghana. What is it about West Africa that offers them a greater sense of community than here in the United States? And could this be seen as a relief to those who suggest Blacks should ‘go back to where they came from?’ How are lawmakers in Congress reacting to this trend of searching for democracy elsewhere? Host Eddie Robinson chats with the Jones family and gets national reaction from Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.

The legendary Prince created an iconic band known as, The Revolution. Not only did the early ’80s group incorporate an energy and sound that threw off music radio programmers worldwide, but The Revolution also consisted of overwhelming talent that embraced notions of diversity and inclusion with members from different backgrounds, ethnicities, races and sexual orientations. Two band members — Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman — were romantically involved with each other and had kept their relationship under wraps from the public during the band’s popularity. Host Eddie Robinson chats with the Emmy winners separately as they offer up career introspection and how their strong partnership played a significant impact on Prince. I SEE U also introduces a new guest host — author and political science professor, Dr. Melanye Price. She’ll be the guiding voice for a couple of months while Eddie becomes a new dad and goes on paternity break. This episode is an encore of the October 2, 2021 broadcast.