Pete Rhodes spent 45 years building something that did not exist in Minnesota before he showed up. A cable radio station. A Black music awards show. A platform for local artists and athletes who were doing the work without getting the recognition. He sold the channel last year, but the imprint is permanent.
Rhodes joined host Charles Hallman on Blacklight on Sports for a conversation about the business he built with his wife Kim, why he never shied away from the word Black, and what he thinks about the state of Black media heading into the future.
A Cable Radio Station in Minnesota
Rhodes pitched a cable company on a then-unheard-of idea: a channel serving the Black community in Minnesota with music and culture 24 hours a day.
“We had this huge audience out there that would like to hear and see their culture,” he said, recalling the pitch. “They were new, we were new. We started off together, gave me an opportunity.”
He described the venture as completely unique at the time and credited the community for keeping it alive.
“It was a difficult slog, to be honest with you,” he said. “Doing something Black in Minnesota sometimes is difficult. If not for our community out there who support us, like they do here with the Spokesman-Recorder, we wouldn’t be around at all.”
He noted that he modeled parts of the business on BET and studied Robert Johnson’s trajectory closely. He also mentioned bringing Donnie Simpson in to host the Minnesota Black Music Awards more than once.
“I hate to tell you what I sold mine for last year,” he said with a laugh. “I didn’t get the bag, but I got a few chips.”
What mattered more, he said, was the pipeline the channel created.
“All the young people who wanted an opportunity, we were able to give it to them,” he said.
The Minnesota Black Music Awards
Rhodes and Kim created the Minnesota Black Music Awards after noticing that a lot of local artists making real moves, including Prince and the musicians who came up around him, were getting no recognition from existing award programs.
Their approach was deliberately different. No competition categories.
“Let’s not put a best this or best that on it,” Rhodes said. “Let’s just recognize the jazz people, the gospel people, the R&B people, and later the hip-hop people. Let’s recognize them for the outstanding work that they’ve done.”
He said that choice is what made the program work.
“Somebody said, ‘How can you determine who’s number one or who’s best?’” he recalled. “But they could see that recognizing those individuals for the work is an important way to do it, the right way, I think, in our community.”
On Saying Black Out Loud
Hallman and Rhodes spent time on a point both clearly feel strongly about: the tendency in some corners to avoid the word Black altogether.
“I’ve heard that you should not even use that word back in the day,” Rhodes said. “Why you got to call it Black? Because it is Black. We have a community that has contributed so much.”
Hallman described his own approach the same way.
“I always say I’m blessed to be Black and I happen to do these things,” Hallman said. “I see myself as a Black journalist. I see myself as a Black writer. I don’t like to hide that.”
Rhodes agreed.
“That’s your secret power,” he said.
The Partnership With Kim
Rhodes credited his wife and business partner Kim as essential to everything he built. She handled administration and operations from the beginning, and her family has roots in Minnesota going back generations.
“Having a partner who understands me, for one thing,” he said. “I get uptight about things and want them to be just right for the community. Not just right because it’s coming from me. Just right for the community that deserves it. And that’s what she brought to the table as well.”
He described the legacy in collective terms.
“A lot of things that we did was yesterday,” he said. “Being able to talk to people like yourself about what it is that we’ve done, I think is important for the next generation.”
Covering Sports From the Fan’s Seat
Rhodes explained that sports coverage was always part of the vision because sports, music, and entertainment all belong to the same cultural conversation.
His approach was built around the fan experience rather than traditional beat reporting.
“We came at it from a fan standpoint,” he said. “We would ask the fans questions about the team. How was the team doing? Who is your favorite player and why?”
He also made a point of showing Black fans at games.
“I thought that was important to show that people of color went out to games,” he said.
Asked which sport he enjoyed covering most, Rhodes pointed to football during the Dennis Green era, largely because Green gave him access that other organizations did not.
“Dennis Green gave us access,” he said. “I got the chance to talk with the legends and be with the people that were on the team making it happen.”
Green was also a drummer and played on one of the Minnesota Black Music Awards shows, a crossover Rhodes clearly enjoyed. He also credited Kevin Warren for extending similar access during his time with the Vikings.
Rhodes was direct about what he sees as a persistent blind spot among local teams.
“In this market it’s so difficult for individuals to realize and understand the importance of that community,” he said. “That community spends money. If you make them welcome, they will support, but more importantly they demand respect and should get respect like all other communities.”
Hallman added that the lack of connection has long-term consequences, since young people who do not see themselves reflected now are less likely to become paying fans later.
The State of Black Media
Asked to assess where Black media stands in 2026, Rhodes did not hold back.
“I’m really disappointed,” he said. “This is 2026. Why should I turn on one of the national channels and only see one type of person getting one opinion?”
He connected the narrowness of mainstream media to a larger failure.
“We’ll never be a great country as we propose to be until we involve all this great information and contribution that’s out there from our community and other communities alike,” he said. “When you try to say that you’re the only community and that what you say is right, and only what you say is right, then there’s a dissension that begins and there’s a disconnect that begins.”
At the same time, he expressed genuine pride in the Black papers and outlets that have endured, naming the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, Insight, and KMOJ specifically.
“Black media is nowhere but up for us to go,” he said. “But it’s still a slog. And we got to love what we’re doing, we got to love our community.”
Rhodes sold his channel last year to a buyer out of Philadelphia, someone he described as a person who looks like him, which mattered to him.
“I’m happy for what we did there,” he said.
He also made clear why he stepped away.
“I spent 45 years doing what we done, my wife and I,” he said. “Those last years that the Lord blesses me with, I want to be with her.”
Advice for Young Journalists
Hallman shared guidance he gave to young people at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Atlanta this year: do not aim only at the biggest names.
“Go and learn how to do things and maybe do it somewhere else, and then you make yourself where they want you,” he said.
He pointed out that even ESPN has been laying people off, including Black journalists.
“You want to make yourself valuable enough where they can’t get rid of you, because you can do more than just one thing,” he said.
Hallman also framed his own work as documentation.
“Fifty years from now somebody can read my paper and learn about what’s going on in 2026,” he said. “I’m a documenter of history.”
Open Mic
Rhodes used his closing time to make one ask of the audience.
“This paper here, the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, was one of the papers that I felt connected with,” he said. “Like they really cared about what it was that we were doing, whether it was the nightclub, the Minnesota Black Music Awards, even my channel.”
He encouraged listeners to support the paper and, more broadly, to keep reading.
“As we get more and more into AI and computers, we tend not to read,” he said. “I just finished a book, and you know what, it was nice to just sit down and read.”