Imhotep Gary Byrd and Stevie Wonder: A Wondrous Friendship and Music Collaboration

Fern Gillespie
Stevie Wonder’s powerful October concert tour “Sing Your Song! As We Fix Our Nation’s Broken Heart,” during the height of the 2024 Presidential Campaign, contained a special shout out to his longtime friend and music collaborator Imhotep Gary Byrd. It was a performance of the 1976 song “Village Ghetto Land,” a famed message song by the Wonder-Byrd connection, whose lyrics were penned by Byrd, New York’s legendary radio talk show host.

“I was so excited, but I couldn’t get over to the New York concert. Steve and I had spoken before. The funny thing was I got a text from Philadelphia, where he performed after Madison Square Garden, that said Steve has shouted me out at that particular concert,” Byrd told Our Time Press. “I was so honored that it was happening. I felt so blessed that he and I had collaborated on songs as Wonder-Byrd. That this particular song had stood the test of time. After decades, the song still had relevance.”

Byrd and Wonder first met as teens in the 1960s. Byrd was a radio personality at Buffalo’s famous WUFO, the home of legendary Black DJs like Eddie O’Jay, Frankie Crocker and Jerry Bledsoe. Wonder was in the early phase of his Motown career. “Steve and I met when I was 17 years-old and he was about 16 years old. We met in Buffalo’s War Memorial Auditorium, where he was doing a Motown show. He realized that I was young, and that he was young. So, we had a brief connection in that moment.” Byrd recalled. “He hadn’t done his breakthrough stuff yet. He was a teenager and was making that transition to what people would call his renaissance period.”

At age 19, Byrd became the youngest full-time radio personality in New York City. He left Buffalo for WWRL and created The Gary Byrd Experience (GBE) formulating his unique sound of mixing music and poetry live on the air. “Steve heard me. By that time in 1969-1970 he was living in New York,” said Byrd. “He is a radio aficionado. He loves radio. Proof being he owns radio station KJLH-FM in Los Angeles. Steve hears radio different. Because of his sight experience, he has inner vision, like he said on his album Inner Visions. He sees radio rather than just hear it.”

Wonder had tuned into the GBE on WWRL and heard Byrd’s poetry. “We had a poetic connection. He heard something in my writing that he liked. He invited me to the Apollo Theater where he was doing an engagement. I go to the Apollo theater and meet him backstage,” said Byrd. “At that point, he invited me to write something with him and he gave me three songs to work with. The way we work together is he creates a scatological framework over the music. Like scat singing. There might be a title that will come through.” This was the beginning of the Wonder-Byrd songwriting team and their first music collaboration was “Village Ghetto Land.”

In 1988, the song was featured in a global television special 70th Birthday Tribute to Nelson Mandela. “It was an internationally broadcast. This was before he was released from prison. That TV special was seen by 600 million people worldwide,” said Byrd. “George Michael, the pop star, actually sang “Village Ghetto Land.” We had no idea he was going to do this. So, we’re watching the special along with everybody on the planet who was watching it. George Michael had enough songs that he could pull from, but he literally sang “Village Ghetto Land” at that particular event.”

The TV special also featured Stevie Wonder. “Steve sang “Dark ‘N’ Lovely,” a Wonder-Byrd song that he and I had collaborated on the album, which is a tribute to South Africa,” he said. “So, I wound up having the experience of having two songs that I wrote in collaboration with Stevie in a special seen by 600 million people around the world.”

Richard Pryor spotlighted the Wonder-Byrd Black history song “Black Man” in 1977 on his NBC series. “They presented the song with a group of kids who were singing Black Man,” Byrd recalled. “I called Steve and I said turn on the TV. We bust out laughing because it was amazing to see it on the Richard Pryor Show.” The Richard Pryor Show is now on YouTube.

Wonder-Byrd has gained a reputation as musician-lyricist collaborators like Gamble and Huff and Holland Dozier Holland. In addition to “Village Ghetto Land,” “Black Man,” and Dark ‘N’ Lovely, other Wonder-Byrd collaborations have included “Misrepresented People” in Spike Lee’s movie “Bamboozled,” where Byrd appeared as a talk show host. The 1984 Black history song “The Crown,” where Byrd performs as Professor of the Rap to Wonder’s music, was a hit in Europe (it has over 1 million views on YouTube). Byrd performed “The Crown” in a concert tour with the Commodores for Motown records.

Veteran KISS-FM and WBLS radio personality Ken Webb once told Byrd that he was a radio prodigy, because he began his career at age 15. “When Ken identified me as a radio prodigy, I saw the symbiosis between Steve as a music prodigy and myself as a radio, prodigy,” he said. “I was so focused on what I was doing that I did not see myself that way.”

Byrd’s work as a pioneer spoken word and rap artist had him inducted into the Hip Hop Hall of Fame. His work in “Black Man,” “The Crown,” “Soul Traveling with the Jimmy Castor Bunch” have been frequently sampled by rappers like Nas and Soul ll Soul. His work on Millie Jackson’s “I Cry” has been sampled by 50 Cent.

Although Byrd was a RCA record artist in the 1970s, through his work with Wonder, he achieved a lifelong goal of working with Motown Records. He would study Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson. “I’m humbled because I know the story of my love for Motown Records,” he said. “Through my work with Steve, I became a Motown songwriter and later on a Motown recording artist with “The Crown.”

Both Wonder and Byrd are renowned for their social justice advocacy and creativity. In 2025, Byrd will be celebrating his 60th anniversary in radio. His first job was in Buffalo at age 15. Byrd is considered one of the longest running talk show hosts in New York. In 1984, Percy Sutton, Chairman of Inner City Broadcasting, invited him to host WLIB talk programming. In 2024, he marked 40 years as a WBLS and WLIB host talking to Black audiences about news and views. “Steve and I are kindred spirits, so to speak,” he said.

“At Motown, Steve grew up at one of the greatest music art schools of all time. His brilliance and genius on top of that took it to a level that is unprecedented in the music business,” said Byrd. “Then combine his level of social insights and commitment to justice and equality for all people. Those things make him an unique institution in the music industry.”