WWRL New York
Imhotep Gary Byrd (born March 14, 1949) is an American, New York City–based radio talk show host and executive producer, radio DJ, poet, songwriter, music recording artist and producer, rapper, writer and community advocate/activist. Byrd began his career as a radio DJ in Buffalo at age 15. In 2015, he celebrated 50 years as a radio personality. For over 30 years, he’s been a talk show host at WBLS and WLIB radio in New York City.
Byrd began his career in Buffalo, New York, on WUFO in the 1960s, discovered and mentored by broadcaster-educator Hank Cameron as a radio prodigy at age 15. As a teen, he integrated Buffalo broadcasting as a radio personality on the general market McLendon station WYSL. By age 19, he was tapped by radio programmer Jerry Boulding to be a DJ on soul station WWRL, where he created his music infotainment show, “The GBE: The Gary Byrd Experience.”
Since the 1980s (after being hired by Percy Sutton & Hal Jackson, co founders of Inner City Broadcasting) he’s been a talk show host on WLIB, WBLS and WBAI. During the 1990s, he created the “Global Black Experience,” a live broadcast for the Apollo Theater.
During the 1980s, Byrd was also a radio and television personality in England, hosting shows on the BBC and other British networks. His 1984 BBC television special with Gil Scott Heron and James Brown earned national awards.
Currently, Byrd can also be heard nationally as “The Voice” of Sirius XM’s “Soul Town” Channel (“Classic Soul & Motown.”) His New York City public broadcasting program on Pacifica, “Radio GBE,” a weekly talk and music program, is heard live every week on WBAI.