KING-FM

KING-FM (98.1 FM; "Classical King FM") is a classical music radio station in Seattle, Washington. Its transmitter is located near Issaquah, Washington on Tiger Mountain.

KING-FM broadcasts in HD.

History

The station has been a non-profit, listener-supported public radio station since May 2011.

KING-FM was once co-owned with KING (1090 AM, now KFNQ) and KING-TV (channel 5), but was donated to a non-profit partnership (consisting of the Seattle Opera, Seattle Symphony, and ArtsFund) by King Broadcasting upon that company’s sale to The Providence Journal Company in 1992. Even after the sale, the radio station was long co-located with the television operation. KING-FM moved to an office building several blocks away in 1999.

KING-FM began broadcasting in Seattle in 1948, originally at FM 94.9, owned by King Broadcasting co-owner Dorothy Bullitt. The year before, Bullitt had bought KEVR and changed it to KING. (Seattle is located in King County, for which its call letters were chosen.) Bullitt also owned KRSC-FM, which had gone on the air around 1947 at FM 98.1 under different ownership and been acquired by Bullitt in 1949. The classical-music station KING-FM moved from 94.9 frequency to 98.1 in 1958, replacing KRSC-FM. The transmitter at the 94.9 frequency was donated to Edison Vocational School, who used it to begin broadcasting KUOW-FM on that frequency.

Youssou N'Dour

Youssou N'Dour (French pronunciation: ​[jusu nˈduʁ]; born 1 October 1959) is a Senegalese singer, percussionist, songwriter, composer, occasional actor, businessman and a politician. In 2004, Rolling Stone described him as, "perhaps the most famous singer alive" in Senegal and much of Africa. From April 2012 to October 2012, he was Senegal's Minister of Tourism and Culture, and from October 2012 to September 2013, he was Senegal's Minister of Tourism and Leisure.

N'Dour helped to develop a style of popular Senegalese music known in the Serer language as mbalax, which derives from the conservative Serer music tradition of "Njuup". He is the subject of the award-winning films Return to Goree directed by Pierre-Yves Borgeaud and Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, which were released around the world.

In 2006, N'Dour was cast as Olaudah Equiano in the film Amazing Grace.

Life

N'Dour was born in Dakar to a Wolof mother and a Serer father. At age 12, he began to perform and within a few years was performing regularly with the Star Band, Dakar's most popular group during the early 1970s. Several members of the Star Band joined Orchestra Baobab about that time.