Although aid has been pouring into the city for the past two and a half years, no volunteer group, legislation or monetary donation has supported the city and its resilient people better than 92.3 FM, known better to those who run wild and look pretty as the DIVA.
For years, the DIVA provided a mix of music catered to “the diva in you.” While the content could very easily have been tired and annoying, the station’s programmers defined their own genre, including a variety of songs from the past four decades. M.C. Hammer followed Madonna. Nelly Furtado would precede Nena’s “99 Luftballons.”
The DIVA not only played artists’ content, but also produced its own techno remixes to songs commonly on the rotation. These “Diva Mixes” were announced before being played and were met with the same enthusiasm as when the Berlin Wall fell.
If Ed McMahon were to show up at my front door with one of those Publishers Clearing House checks, I’d smile and say thank you – but if I heard the DJ proclaim that the Diva Mix to Pink’s “U + Ur Hand” is set to play after the short commercial break, I would certainly have a conniption fit and have to breathe into a brown paper bag for several minutes.
After Katrina, the DIVA changed its slogan to “New Orleans’ Feel Good Station” and single-handedly raised the morale of the city by playing Donna Summer 20 times a day. It seemed as if things were improving and life was getting back to normal.
Dec. 20, 2007, New Orleans’ recovery was forever impeded when the DIVA changed formats without warning or even a goodbye and became Mix 92.3.
I laid in a puddle on the floor waiting, hoping, praying that maybe the DIVA just needed to discover itself and I would shortly hear it return to my radio.
I debated leaving the city. There was nothing left here for me. Later, as I was driving down the Earhart Expressway, an SUV cut in front of me. As I was waving one particular finger and using certain four letter words that would never be permitted in this column, I noticed a bumper sticker on the offending vehicle’s window: “DIVA 92.3 – Music for the Diva in You.” And just like someone in one of those after school specials, I had my epiphany. The DIVA was in me and in all of us. I had to remember the good times that we had shared together and carry on the DIVA’s message to improve New Orleans and myself.
As for Mix 92.3, I think former DIVA artist Pink said it best: “Keep your drink, just give me the money. It’s just you and your hand tonight.”
