Donnie Simpson’s Video Soul
Reported by The Couch Sessions
Words by Stone, from DC-based music magazine, The Couch Sessions.
Last week, local DC legend Donnie Simpson signed off of the airwaves at WPGC-FM, his on-air home for the past 15 years. Last Friday marked an end to his over 30 year career on television and radio. Since I wasn’t born in DC, I never really got to know Donnie on radio, however growing up, Donnie became a childhood idol of mine, as the host of BET television show Video Soul.
Video Soul was a nightly staple in our household. Every day at 7PM, my sister and I would be planted in front of the television, watching the latest videos of the day, then getting mad when they would roll credits over the last video and cut it off in the middle (which was notoriously done during the number 1 video of the Friday Top 20 Countdown!)
Minor annoyances aside, Video Soul was one of the best shows on television back in the day, and in a time when urban music was still fighting for recognition on the airwaves, Donnie gave a platform to such artists as Take 6 that would’ve never made it onto MTV. The interviews that took place in BET’s Northeast DC studios are legendary: Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, New Edition, Luther Vandross, Babyface, and En Vouge stopped by, just to name a few.
Unfortunately, times changed. The popularity of R&B and urban contemporary sounds waned during the 90s, and after a few format changes, Donnie Simpson signed off of Video Soul in 1996. Flash forward to today, where most “music” channels rarely even play music videos, and you will notice that Video Soul was more than ahead of its time.
Some great interview footage from Video Soul can be found via YouTube:
Mariah Carey 1990 – First TV Interview? (Part One/Part 2 Here)
En Vogue – Interview w/ Donnie Simpson 1992 (Part 1/Part 2 Here)
“Take 6″ on Video Soul
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