Malik Yoba is co-hosting Radio One’s St. Louis Radiothon for Ferguson Relief with Nick Cannon on Monday, January 19th on MLK day, Monday, January 19th, from 12pm to 7pm CST .
Radio One St. Louis Old School 95.5 has joined forces with the St. Louis business council to raise funds for the businesses that have been impacted by the civic unrest in the community. Yoba, a longtime activist is also in St. Louis working with the Urban League Save Our Sons program. That program provides job training for underemployed and unemployed folks.
A screening of Empire, Yoba’s new show, raised an additional $6,000 for that program.
“It’s real down here,” Yoba says. “So you gotta be involved.”
Of Empire, he says “It’s like lighting in a bottle. Back on Fox with something that’s important to Black folks.”
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Yoba is no stranger to Fox. He starred on New York Undercover, a groundbreaking show that featured him and co-star, Italian/Puerto Rican actor Michael DeLorenzo as the first two men of color to headline a TV drama.
At one point, when the show was threatened, Tom Joyner supported the campaign to keep it on the air. (Ultimately, the show ended after four seasons). In past years, people have had to send in things representative of the show or emails to TV execs, but now that social media is the rule, it has helped shows on “the bubble” of cancellation even more. So far, Empire is only bringing in high ratings for Fox, but down the line, who knows?
“Now that we have social media, that helps,” Yoba says. “If you like what you see use the hashtag #MalikYoba, or #Empire or @EmpireFox. The audiences have always had a lot of control and now that we have social media, I think that people listen to that a lot more and they don’t make decisions based on arbitrary reasons.”
For Yoba himself, though, his TV career is another platform for service, which will be on display on the King Holiday this Monday. You can read more about the Radiothon and how to donate here.
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