We Black Radio LLC
14 episodes listed below
Central Oregon talk with a Black community center.
The Truth Ride with Riccardo Waites brings Central Oregon issues into a barbershop-and-radio conversation, from county commissioner races to Juneteenth. It is warm, direct, and often blunt, with local guests speaking through politics, housing, race, comedy, sports, and community memory.
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The Truth Ride with Riccardo Waites is a Central Oregon community talk show with politics on the front seat and neighborhood life close behind. It is rooted in Bend and Deschutes County, but its concerns are larger than local government. County commissioner candidates, housing officials, artists, comedians, organizers, and community elders all become part of the same running question: who gets represented, protected, housed, remembered, and heard. The show has a public-access warmth, but it is not timid. It can praise a useful resource, challenge a political choice, sit with grief, or laugh through an ugly story without treating any of those turns as separate worlds. Episodes often move in a lived-in rhythm, with station breaks, music, local shoutouts, and long setup questions that let guests explain themselves. The Lion's Den Barbershop becomes more than a location. It gives some interviews a close, familiar feel, like civic conversation happening in a place where people already talk straight. Recent episodes follow Deschutes County commissioner races through interviews with Jennifer Letts, Rick Russell, Amanda Page, and others. Other conversations turn toward Housing Works, local Democratic organizing, Juneteenth venue changes, and a veteran facing homelessness. The show also keeps space for culture. Leila Boston's custom design work, Cody Michael's comedy, high school volleyball coverage, and the Barry Washington Jr. Permanent Memorial all sit inside its idea of public life. Race is not treated as a side topic. It runs through the show's questions about belonging, political power, education, comedy, memory, and what it means to build community in a region where Black voices are often outnumbered. The intergenerational conversation with Dr. Dalton Miller Jones and Ray Randall shows the show at its most reflective, moving through school expectations and family history. The Truth Ride is not polished into distance. It keeps the edges of local speech, local disagreement, and local care. That is the point.
Made for: For listeners who want local politics, race, housing, culture, and community discussed in plain language. It especially suits people interested in Central Oregon civic life beyond official press conferences.
What sets it apart: The show blends candidate interviews and public issues with barbershop intimacy, local memory, and Black community-radio perspective. Its strength is bringing big civic questions back to people, specific places, and lived stakes.
Tune in and hear diverse voices on numerous topics including speaking truth to power and each other. Voices from a rural community that’s less than 1% Black and broadcasting on Central Oregon’s only Black-owned radio station, We Black Radio.Hosted by founder Riccardo Waites, this show digs into local, national, and global happenings with unfiltered honesty, humor, and heart. Expect real conversations and fresh perspectives from Riccardo and his guests. If you’re ready for dialogue that challenges, enlightens, and inspires, buckle up and tune in to The Truth Ride.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Riccardo Waites connects county politics, Black community life and civic memory through direct conversations rooted in Central Oregon.
Riccardo Waites brings Central Oregon public life down to the level of actual encounters. Interviews with Deschutes County Commissioner candidates examine why they entered the race and how changes to the commission could affect representation.
Riccardo Waites puts county candidates in the barber's chair, so you get politics at neighborhood distance.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A community-minded local politics episode that pairs an award chat, a candidate interview, and a blunt public response.
The Truth Ride spends its hour on local civic politics, moving from Josie Stanfield's award conversation to Jennifer Letts' Deschutes County Commissioner run and the host's public response to a derogatory email.
A community-focused episode linking racial terror, love work, and county accountability.
The Truth Ride gives this episode a clear community focus by moving from the Crimson Report to a conversation with Graham Betchart and Joy Hamilton of Making Space for Love on WBR, then into a local political check-in with Amanda Page in the Deschutes County Commissioner Series.
A grounded local conversation about school expectations, family memory, and being seen correctly.
The episode settles into a supporter conference room with a thank-you to the Ben Redmond Habitats for Humanity space, then turns to an intergenerational conversation with Dalton Miller-Jones and Ray Randall about Black life in Central Oregon.
A community-minded episode that moves from comedy to remembrance without losing its local footing.
The Truth Ride moves from a barbershop interview to a memorial unveiling and then to a high school volleyball stop, keeping a clear community lens throughout.
Central Oregon politics gets personal when local voices, memory, and neighborhood conversation share the mic.
The episode offers a compact Central Oregon portrait, bringing a local ICE update, a profile of David Chisholm as one of the only Black chefs in Central Oregon, a conversation about the Barry Washington Jr.
Fast riffs, music heat, civic nonsense.
Cultured recommendations with a Superfly pulse.
Hip-hop arguments with memory and edge.
Sports talk with Cashville cadence.
Hip-hop memory with no indoor voice.
Rap criticism with jokes still in it.
The show opens with Josie Stanfield and a conversation about her Ubuntu Beatrice Morrow Kennedy Courage Award.
The host opens on the Crimson Report and what it reveals about ongoing racial terror in this country.
This episode of The Truth Ride introduces Auzheal Clement and Deschutes County Commissioner candidate Rick Russell in a Meet Your Neighbor interview at the Lion's Den, coinciding with the first day of Black History Month.
The episode features an interview with hip-hop artist Sizzle the Great about his new EP and discusses a recent Human Rights and Equity Commission meeting in Bend.
An interview with Deschutes County Commissioner candidate John Heylin on the Truth Ride podcast.
The Truth Ride podcast episode features an interview with Josie Stanfield about Juneteenth and a venue change, plus a veteran facing homelessness due to a local nonprofit.
The episode discusses the resignation of Bend, Oregon's black equity director Andres Portela, alleging systemic racism and hostile workplace conditions, and critiques the city's response as protecting power over justice.
The show opens with an intergenerational conversation in Central Oregon.
The Truth Ride opens at the Lion's Den Barbershop with local comedian and community leader Cody Michael.
Deschutes County Commissioner Phil Chang discusses discontinuing the county's volunteer internal DEI committee.
The host opens with Luke Richter of the Central Oregon Peacekeepers.
An interview with Lynne McConnell, Executive Director of Housing Works, discussing their work and answering listener questions, alongside news about local Democrats launching an app and controversy over a candidate.