Jasmine Sanders Talks the Radio Game with The Industry Dot Biz

Kevin: And so now you’re doing a syndicated show with D.L. Hughely. How did you manage that?

Jasmine: So I was working for CBS in New York at Station Fresh 102.7, which is actually an AC Radio Station , which was really weird.

Kevin: People are going to get pissed at me for saying this but AC is like a retirement home the way it’s often programmed. it really is.

Jasmine: No, it is. Because they believe in less personality and more music. And so coming from urban, I was used to being like, “Yo, what’s up … it’s yo girl …” and they were like, no, no, no, no, no. This is all about the music. So, you know, even though it was a Hot AC, it was still AC. So, the money was different, gigs were different. Even when you would go out to do the remotes – they don’t even do like concerts and things like that. You don’t open shows.I was like, wait a minute, what! That’s my extra income. So, I got an email on Facebook of all places.

Kevin: What did you do? What did you do? How did you end up there?

Jasmine: So Hector Hannibal hit me up on Facebook and said, “We’re doing a show with D.L. Hughley, we want you to be the co-host. Your name keeps coming up as the ideal co-host. Would you be interested? Not thinking, “Ain’t nobody inboxing me on Facebook about a real job.” So I ignored it for like three or four days, and then he dropped Ken Johnson’s name. And so I called Ken and I said, “So, I keep getting these emails on Facebook about a job, blah, blah, blah. Do you know this guy? And he was like, call them right now. And so I called, turns out it was true and I was like, really? They offered me the gig. They were like, okay, we want you to …

Kevin: Without an audition?

Jasmine: Without an audition or anything. And I was like, “Well, I’ll take it. So I moved to Dallas. Well, actually there was a lot of back and forth with that because DL was still doing Dancing with the Stars. There was a hiccup with his contract. So they were like, “Well, we still want you for the position but we’re going to have to put a pin in it, and we’re going to put you with, instead of moving you to Dallas, we need you to move to Florida, to Miami, and we want you to do the show for a bit with Rick Party. I was like “Okay, I think.” I don’t want to get stuck in Miami.

Kevin: That’s odd.

Jasmine: Yes. I don’t want to get stuck there. I mean, I like it to visit, but I don’t want to live there. He assured me no, it will be temporary.

Jasmine: So Rick and I and Guy Black got on the phone because Guy Black was going to be the producer and we started having these conversations. Then I get a call from Hector that says, wait, put the brakes on that, we’re not doing that. We’re going to actually fly you to LA and you’ll do the show by yourself with different guest hosts coming in. And I was like, “Okay, this is starting to sound like you guys don’t know what you’re doing and I don’t want to uproot my life in New York for something that might not pan out.” And he was like, “No, we assure you, this is going to happen.” And I was like, “Okay.” Then, like a week later they call and they say another change of plans. We need you to move to Dallas. We need you to be there by Friday. You’re going to be doing this show with a guy named Skip Murphy and we’ll hold it there and see what happens. I was like, “Okay, wait.” So I finally decided, let me just take a leap of faith. Let me go see what this is all about. I moved to Dallas. I did the show with Skip Murphy for about 13 weeks, and then they tell me, “We need you to fly to LA, to meet DL, to make sure he really likes you. I’m like, “What the hell? So now I’m like, just over all of this, but I say, “Okay, fine.” I’ll go to LA. It is the night of the Trayvon Martin verdict. And I’m in a car on my way to meet DL for dinner at Maestros. I get the verdict and I’m pissed, I’m sad. I’m full of these emotions, and I’m anxious about this meeting. And I’m like, all of this is a bad omen. Maybe I should’ve stayed in New York. I get to the restaurant, DL is late, which pisses me off even more. So I decided, “Well, I’m just going to drink myself to death.” So I started drinking champagne and I’m thinking, “I’m not going to pay for it.” And I ordered dessert. DL finally gets there, we exchange niceties. I tease him a little bit for being late and then we really got into this whole thing with Trayvon Martin. And prior to that, we had a conversation. He’s like, “Listen, here’s the truth. You’re not the person that I really wanted. I wanted someone else.”

And I said with the utmost confidence, “Go after that person then. Don’t waste time with me because I don’t want to be in a situation where I’m not really wanted. I think you should get who you really want because it’s going to be your show and if it sinks or swims, it will be on your shoulders.” And so we ended up meeting for like two hours, maybe more. And he says you know what, I made a mistake. He was like, you’re going to take me places. I said, “No sir.” I said, “You told me how you felt from the beginning. I remember that.” I said, “You do not have to make me feel good about anything, I’m okay with that. Go for the person that you want. I’m going to be fine.” I get in the car, I go back to the airport.

I fly back and he assured me – no, I’m telling you. I was like, “I’ve been in this industry a long time, you don’t have to sugar coat, anything for me. I promise you, I’m going to be fine.” And about a week later, Tony Gray calls me and he says,” DL wants to meet you for breakfast.” And I was like “In LA?” He was like, “No, he’s here in Dallas.” And I was like, “Okay.” So, I went and his whole crew was there. I meet everybody. He came down and he was like, “I told you, I’d see you again.” He said, “Now we’re off to the races, are you ready to take over the world? I said, “I stay ready. I’m ready if you’re ready.” I said, “But I just want to make sure that I’m really the person that you want to work with.” And so we met alone and we gave each other, I guess, permission. He asked me for permission to be who he is. And I said, only if I get reciprocity, I also have to be who I am. I’m not going to be the chick who giggles and laughs at your jokes.

Kevin: Hmm, I wonder who you could be talking about.

Jasmine: That’s not going to be who I am. I don’t want you to hire me and then fire me because I’m so opinionated. And so he promised me and he’s held true to that promise. And let me tell you, we’ve had some knockdown, drag-out disagreements and in the end, we love hard, we play hard, we work hard and we still respect each other. So it’s actually been great.

Kevin: That’s great because that’s a situation where – because I do know of some other situations where people are scared of the hosts.

Jasmine: I know some of those situations too.

Kevin: Not to mention any names, but I’m curious. Did he tell you who the person was that he wanted to originally hire?

Jasmine: He did but I’m not going to say anything about it, but he told me.

Kevin: You don’t have to say it, but I mean you can if you want to. 

Jasmine: I understood it though because he felt some allegiance there. And so I said, “Listen, I honor that.” I said, that just shows me, you’re a person of integrity. You know you made a promise and now you want to fulfill it. But he basically said that the rule was if you go with that person, the deal is off. And so he was like, “I can’t do it. It’s not even up for discussion. So, out of all, these other groups of women, I think that you’re the one who’s going to really take me where I need to go.”

Kevin: Okay. What is the hardest lesson you’ve learned in your career? What is the one thing that you’ll never forget?

Jasmine: The one thing that I’ll never forget is that my value is not tied into or tied to this business. And the reason I say that is because I can remember the hardest lesson and the very first lesson that I learned was when I first got hired and I’m a Scorpio, so I just need one lesson. That’s all I need and I keep it to the grave. But I was doing seven to midnight. I had taken over for a guy by the name of Eddie Rock, and I was also music director and I had amassed all of these people that I thought were friends because of being a music director. Now, mind you, I was very green. So I thought they really liked me.

Kevin: Shame on you, shame!

Jasmine: I was green, I was fresh meat. So I was thinking, “Well all these people really like me.” So when the title was taken from me and I moved to mid-days all of those so-called “friends” stopped calling, when they came by the studio, they wouldn’t see me. I would call them and they wouldn’t call me back. And I was like, damn this is so crazy. And I realized they didn’t like me, they liked what I could do. And so, again, I only needed that lesson once. And so I knew just as quickly as you can have the power, you can lose the power, and tied to that power a lot of times are people who claim to be your friends and they’re not. So I stopped looking for validation in the title and the job and I realized that it’s more important to know who I am and know who my real friends are. 

Kevin: Where’s my Bible, where’s my Bible?

Jasmine: And those are the people who stayed. Yes, God. Let me tell you something. And I’m so grateful. As hard of a lesson as that was because it was hurtful because I was still so young and I was like, wow! I thought that they really liked me. And so as hard of a lesson and as much as it hurt me, I’m so glad it happened to me. And I’m so glad it happened to me early on. So now when people come by the studio, whether it’s radio or TV and they’re like, “Oh hey” and being really friendly, I know, okay, let me really look at this. And it doesn’t bother me if I never see them again even if they say “No, let’s stay in contact.” I don’t really put so much stock in that because I understand that in this business, fame, and power are all fleeting, it’s like a mistress, it loves you at certain times, and other times it doesn’t.

Kevin: It’s all good. As long as it serves someone else. It’s ironic you should mention that because I learned this, just like you, I learned the lesson early on when I was a PD in my twenties and at KDKO in Denver and the exact same thing. It’s like, I thought, “Oh, these are my friends, everybody likes me, why I’m so popular?” And like you said, it took me one time and I could literally count my true friends on one hand in the industry. I know thousands of people over the years, thousands of people in the industry. True friends, I can count on two hands. You know, people that I know I could deal with outside, but I’m not mad about that. Some people get mad about it. I’m not mad about it because I understand that it’s business. And since we work in a lifestyle industry, it’s very easy to get caught up in that gray area. But it’s very black and white.

Jasmine: VERY black and white. I’m glad I know that now. I mean, it is what it is, and like you, I don’t harbor ill feelings towards those people because I get it. In their mind, they were like, I have to stay close to power. I also learned that I was empowered. You can’t take it away from me because you take the title. I’m still burning just as bright, and whether you choose to be the moth to my flame, that’s your business. But it does not dim my light. And I’m okay with you doing you, just as it is okay with me being me.

Kevin: And then if you’re wise enough, you get both sides. You know, sometimes people say, well, it’s so mean of them that they don’t return calls. If I have to justify my purpose and get records played I don’t have time to hear you complain and moan and groan and tell me how people aren’t returning your calls and hear remember when stories. But I understand what it’s like to be out of the loop too. I’ve been there.

Jasmine: Nobody’s calling you, nobody’s checking on you. And nobody is going to call somebody for you to just get you a job. It doesn’t work that way.

Kevin: And then you end up starting over, over and over and over again instead of making those upward moves. So absolutely. It’s like this industry can teach you some harsh lessons. But you know what, at the end of the day, and I’m going to ask you this because I know I do. You know that there are some aspects of the industry that you don’t like, but overall you really do love the industry because you understand it. While things like racism exist overall It’s been really good to me how about you?

Jasmine: Absolutely. I’m going to tell you, there are other things that I know I’m good at, but this is the thing that I love. And I put a lot into it. I sacrifice a lot for it, but I don’t do it begrudgingly. I do it because I love it. I love so many things about it. And I cannot complain one bit because you’re right. I think about the luxuries that I have, I think about the privileges I have, I think about just the fact that I have a paycheck doing what I love. I get on the radio and talk shit and get a check for it. And I think for myself and get to laugh at jokes and meet amazing people and take care of my family and my friends, especially when they are in need. So I don’t regret it.

Kevin: Oh hell no, mmm mmm, I don’t do that. I won’t do that.

Jasmine: I know not to call you when I’m in trouble.

Kevin: I’m just letting you and everybody know, don’t call me for no extra help. I will give it to the ASPCA and I will hand out a turkey or two but (laughs).

Jasmine: But that may not trickle to me, Kevin.

Kevin: Well I’m like Clarence Avant. It’s like, I help you from a distance. You don’t need to know who I am or what I’ve done and I do that a lot.  I prefer to do it that way.

Jasmine: But don’t be calling me.

Kevin: I’m joking. How do you give back? What do you like to do outside of this?

Jasmine: I love to work on the foster care initiative and adoption awareness because of my background. And I can’t tell you how much joy it has brought me over the years, just working with young girls and women alike who have lost hope or feel like their lives are going nowhere because of their situation. And I know too whom much is given much required, right? 

Kevin: My mother always tells me that.

Jasmine: So I think about where I could be had my adopted family, not adopted me out of foster care. I probably wouldn’t even be sitting here doing this interview

Kevin: You’ve mentioned to me before that you didn’t really have a mentor. Neither did I, but I won’t deny that Black folks in this industry definitely looked out for me. Don’t you think that in a way it’s a great thing that you didn’t have one?

Jasmine: Well, you know what, I did not have a mentor that I could call on for advice really. However, I would be remiss if I did not say there’s one person in particular who gave me the best advice ever. And every time I’m asked, I always drop his name. And that was Mel Jones. Mel Jones was based out of Memphis when I was working in Nashville, and I remember when he came to see me for the first time. And he said, “You are a pretty little girl,” He said, “You’re going to have some problems in this industry.” He said, “Let me set you right.” And he started giving me advice like a father, and he’s telling me all of the things about how men were going to come at me, artists were going to approach me. And I needed to be careful about who I spent my time with and the decisions that I made from a sexual perspective and all of those things would follow me. And it was because of his advice that I heeded, that I think I did not get into that trap that a lot of young women get caught up in, in this industry that follows them for their career and they’re more known for other things than their talent. And so I always remembered that. But from that point on, in terms of like a female or someone that I could actually talk to about trying to argue my value with the GM about a paycheck or my salary or vacation time or whether my remote fee is smaller than maybe some of the guys. And I did not have that and I think that it probably in some ways did serve me well because I’ve always been a fighter even before radio. I was just always scrappy that way. And so I think that it probably taught me how to be self-sufficient in many ways, but I do sometimes hate that it re-insulated that loneliness aspect and that selfishness in the industry. So it’s kind of like the industry makes you selfish already, compounded with me not really having anyone to call on, just made me very insulated from, I guess, the rest of the industry at times.

Kevin: I greatly appreciate your honesty. We are SO much alike in that sense. What do you think is going to happen to the radio industry?

Jasmine: Part of me feels like radio will always be there. And I don’t know if I may be a little biased because I’m in it. Because I think that there’s always room for something that’s free. So, when you get in your car – not everybody wants to hook up their phone to listen to their playlist. Sometimes you just want to get entertained without having to do anything extra. And the fact that, again, like I said, that it’s free and I think even me, I listened to my own playlist a lot, but then there are times that I really liked to hear the tone of the radio. There’s a different sound and a different feel to it. It puts me in a different kind of mood. And so I think that that will always be there, but I would imagine somebody probably thought that the eight-track would always be around, somebody probably thought of blue-ray disks, if they’re still around. I don’t know, but I’m sure somebody probably thought that they would always be around and be the wave of the future. So I think it’s kind of hard to tell, but I would like to think that again because it does add that locality, the local personalities talking about what’s going on the corner of 75th and Avalon or whatever. I think that it will always be there. I think that it will definitely change though because it has to, in order to keep up with the demand and everything from DVRs at home to playlists. I think unfortunately people are losing their patients to wait through commercials, whereas before they wait through them with no problem. But now you get a used car, you can see the finger punches where somebody has been going back and forth, changing the preset, and having all of those different options available to you when you don’t want to listen to, the mattresses that are on sale or the big white sale at Macy’s, you don’t have to really listen through that.

Jasmine: So I think that radio will definitely have to change in order to keep up with the demand for the attention or lack thereof of its consumer.

Okay. I’m not going to talk about comedians because you work with one and DL does a great job and he’s been in radio almost as long as I have and I think he’s perfect for it. But I’m saying at first it was the comedians. Then you moved on to the singers, then you moved on to the gospel people. Now you got podcasters and then you have the audiobook industry. I mean, it’s like everybody has taken a piece of what should have been ours, but the part that’s really, I think that’s really f’d up is that we’re not even fighting for it. We’re like, I’ll just wait for the next gig that pays $15 an hour and I’ll be fine la dee do. What is that about?

Jasmine: I think that we’re in this age of warp-speed where nobody really cares anymore that you’ve put the time in, that you’ve studied broadcast journalism, that you understand the do’s and don’ts, you even understand the regulations from the FCC. Like people who are students of radio; to me, it reminds me of a lot of the music industry. There was a time when you went into the studio and you did everything live, you sang live, the musicians were live, everything was authentic. And then even the process of, not only recording, but the printing and all of those things, and then you fast forward a decade or so, and things began to change. And now we’re all the way to the point where people are releasing projects that were recorded in a freaking bathroom, or just somewhere in a restaurant, and it’s got a million downloads. And so I was very, very, very pissed at one point because I felt like I went to school for this. I paid money for a college education to study.

Kevin: Paid dues for it.

Jasmine: And I had to work that lonely, overnight shift where I would fall asleep while the record was playing. And I only had so many seconds to cut that tape and market and, you know, stick it together with a piece of sticky tape, roll it back and play that contest. Like, I came from that and so now to see other people who have no idea what they’re doing …

Kevin: And making a LOT more money!!!

Jasmine: It takes 50 takes to do a ten-second reel, and I’m like, you can’t like, come on. And so, but now I get that being angry about it doesn’t do me any good, nobody cares. It doesn’t change anything. So the best that I could do and the best thing that I try to tell other people is to always move with it. Like, don’t become archaic. Don’t become a dinosaur move with the times. It’s uncomfortable, there are things about it that you don’t like. I can remember a time when you would never cut corners on the radio. There were certain things that you had to do and you had to do it right. You had to hit that post, you had to make sure that – just a lot of things that nobody really cares about now. And so it’s almost like, this thing that I love so much people are just abusing it and I just sit and watch. And it’s like, well, there’s really not a lot that I can do. I can’t salvage it by myself. So the only thing that I could do is try my best to keep up and be better, on top of what I think I am already, as far as the basics. Do you know what I mean?

Kevin: I actually give them credit because I think that to a large extent that our era comes from being trained.

Jasmine: Yes, agree, agree. I agree with that wholeheartedly.

Kevin: You know what I’m saying. Had we not been the baby elephant with the huge rope tied around our foot that grew into the big elephant with the thin string, we were trained to just basically shut up, do your job, and get out. You weren’t trained to be an entrepreneur, you weren’t trained to have extra jobs, you weren’t trained to sell yourself, and you weren’t trained to have value. So I get it. I get that we are sitting here and saying, well, I can’t move. It’s like, I want to, but I can’t move. But if some of these vintage jocks knew what some of these people are making today; like if you go on YouTube and you see some of the worst videos. I mean, they’re put together tributes to people in the industry or about some singers, but, you know, stuff that we could do hogtied and using our tongue to run the studio, they’re doing it and it sounds horrible, but they’re making money, a TON of money. They got so many followers. All it takes is a thousand followers, 4,000 hours of watching, you make money and we’re settling for,” I’ll just wait for the next gig.”

Jasmine: I think that is our fault.

Kevin: It is, it is. So tell me about the adoption. I know that’s how we met. We had a discussion about the whole adoption. How are you feeling these days about that? Is that something that you ever move past or is that, how do you deal with that?

Jasmine: I mean, I think it’s different for everybody. I think you have some people that it doesn’t bother at all. They have great stories about their adoption. It doesn’t affect them. Me personally, though, I think that there is something that it’s hard to get rid of when you think about the trauma, at least for me anyway. At birth is when I was given away. So when you even think about that, right, a child normally is born, they placed the child on the chest of the mother to bond right? Now, when you are adopted, you don’t do that. The child is taken away and basically cleaned up and set aside and waiting to see if somebody is going to adopt them, which is what happened to me. And I think that there is something deeply scarring about that, almost like such a blunt cut.

Kevin: Like you never made the connection.

Jasmine: Like you never made the connection and the way it showed up in my life, even now, it’s very difficult for me to make authentic, real connections with people because of that abandonment issue. I’m always thinking people will leave. And I never knew where it came from. I had to go into therapy to kind of figure out why am I okay when people just walk away? Or why am I okay with just walking away from people and not concerned about the trauma or the disaster that I leave in my wake. And I realize now that that goes all the way back because I wasn’t adopted until I was almost five years old. So for a good five years of my life, I went through four foster homes. So I was always being placed, then being taken out of there, then placed, then taken out of there, just kind of back and forth. And even though that’s a very early age, I think there’s a lot of repressed memories, I’m sure that are there that affect me in my relationships and the value that I have to fight for professionally how I feel about it and sometimes take it personally. And so for me, as much as I can do to help other young women or men who were in that position. My brother who was also adopted. He’s not my blood brother, but he was adopted prior to me. He, for years, didn’t want anything to do with his biological family. He was like, I don’t care anything about them. You know, these people, they raised me. I love them as my mom and dad, and that’s all that matters. But then years later, like, I don’t know, he went into the military and he had been in the military for about 10 or 12 years and he called me and he said, how did you find your biological family? And I was like, “I thought you didn’t care anything about that.” And he was like, “Well, it’s really for health and medical situations, I need to know about my history and anything that I might need to know about.” But then he admitted to me maybe a couple of years after that, that he really did have a desire to know but was a little embarrassed to say so. So I think for guys, they really just, you know, men you are all easy. I like it is what it is. You just move on for the most part. And I think women, we have to have closure. It’s one of the reasons why I think in relationships, for the most part, men handle it differently than women. Women, you know, we yell and scream and we’re going to make it known that you know that you hurt me. Men are hurt, but they don’t really vocalize it in the same way. We’re going to follow you around and bust the windows out of your car so you know you broke my heart, now, I’ll break your car. We do things like that so I think for me, it was important to find closure. I had to find them, I needed to seek them out so that I could find out what was wrong with me. Why did you give me away, I was a baby? How could you leave me in the world like that and go on, like, I’d never existed? It was important for me to kind of get the end of that story. 

Kevin: Did you get your answer?

Jasmine: No.

Kevin: You didn’t?