Imhotep Gary Byrd

Imhotep Gary Byrd is a 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.

Gary Byrd and the GB Experience was an American male/female vocal/instrumental group, who had a single titled "The Crown", in the UK Singles Chart. It was released on the Motown label, entered the chart on 23 July 1983 at number 21, and rose to a high of number 6; it remained in the chart for 9 weeks. It had previously been released in the US on Stevie Wonder's short-lived Wondirection label, but did not receive proper promotion because its release coincided with the purchase of Motown by MCA Records, where the small label was overlooked.

A New York radio legend, who has been on the airwaves since the 1960s, Byrd began his career in Buffalo NY on WUFO, 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 programming genius Jerry Boulding to be a DJ on then famed soul station WWRL-AM, 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 innovated the milestone “Global Black Experience,” a live broadcast for the “World Famous” Apollo Theater, featuring many standing room only audiences, outstanding special guests and breakthrough live event programming.

During the 1980s, Byrd was also a popular 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 Friday night from 6:00pm –8:00pm on WBAI-FM and at WBAI.org .

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