Grateful dread public radio

Grateful Dread Public Radio (GDPR) is a U.S.-based Internet public radio service, which provides 24/7 noncommercial programming consisting of multigenre music, news and talk shows, activism information and community-service efforts. Founded in 1996 by journalist and broadcaster Natalie Davis, the service bounced between a number of web radio servers including Launchcast and last.fm. The station is currently owned and operated by Grateful Dread Media in Baltimore, Maryland, as a listener-supported public-service effort. It is the only independent (non-member of NPR and PRI) public radio station available via noted Internet radio hub Live365. Its mission, per the GDPR Web site, is to promote independent music artists and a peace and justice platform in an effort to encourage listeners to move beyond mainstream media in order to hear music, IDeaS and points of view often missing or excluded from commercial radio and to take an ACTIVE role in, as the station literature puts it, making a better world.

GDPR news/talk programming includes shows with a liberal-progressive bent. Among the offerings: Democracy Now!, Free Speech Radio News, Media Minutes, CounterSpin, Between the Lines, This Way Out, America the Green, the EnviroMinute, The Progressive Radio, Nature Watch and GDR InfoBreaks. Programming also comes from the Grateful Dread News staff, which is headed by Davis (formerly associate editor and online editor of Baltimore City Paper, associate editor of the now-defunct Baltimore Alternative and producer/co-host of the now-ended Wayne Besen Show on Sirius Satellite Radio) and California-based journalist and poet Kimberly Beavers. GDPR, presumably to make a clear distinction between its offerings and those of more mainstream terrestrial, satellite and Internet stations, says it presents diverse sounds and ideas for open minds.

The music format of Grateful Dread Radio is called "kind": It is a freeform mix of rock, blues, jamband, country, folk, jazz and international music, some by established new and classic artists, but most from unsigned independent artists GeneRally frozen out of mainstream stations. The station site also notes that GDPR exists in part to honor the rock band the Grateful Dead and the late Jamaican reggae artist Bob Marley, but its extensive playlist goes far beyond hippie rock and reggae.

External links

• Gdreadradio.net - the GDPR Web site
• Grateful Dread Radio's Live365 player-launch page
• GDPR's MySpace page
• GDPR's Facebook page