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Country music is having a moment; whether it’s a short blip or an enduring bonanza remains to be seen.
In a Country Radio Broadcasters CRS360 webinar, “Moment Us: Leveraging Country Music’s Growth,” executives from three different industry sectors — radio, streaming and touring — grappled with the genre’s precedent-setting achievements, which raise serious questions about why country is popular and how to harness the current momentum.
Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town,” Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” and Luke Combs’ “Fast Car” gave country the top three titles on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 dated Aug. 5 for the first time in history. Oliver Anthony Music’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” joined Wallen and Combs to repeat the feat on the Aug. 26 chart.
There is no single reason for the trend — panelists cited the genre’s sonic expansion, its increasing acceptance among younger fans, better data that allows gatekeepers to respond quickly to consumers’ habits and streaming’s blurring of stylistic lines.
Fans and country platforms “seem to be embracing the fringes of the format a little bit more now, whether it’s sort of the Americana country that Zach Bryan represents or the rock-leaning country that a Jelly Roll represents,” CAA Nashville co-head Marc Dennis said. “Artists like that — that you wouldn’t necessarily have called mainstream country five, six years ago — those artists are bringing fans into the format.”
As country’s face is changing in the marketplace, some of the accepted norms are changing, too. Where country devotees were once reliable followers of all artists in the genre, individual acts increasingly have specific fan bases, and Dennis said he is no longer concerned about keeping 30 days’ distance between competing country concerts in the same market, though he does try to keep separation between on-sale dates for different shows. And with radio listeners tuning in stations for shorter spans, programmers are less concerned about the gap between repeat spins from the same act.
“If the average tune-in is 11 to 15 minutes, the idea that we’re going to artificially say, ‘Well, we’re only going to play X artist every hour and 15 minutes,’ that seems very shortsighted,” WIRK West Palm Beach, Fla., operations manager/PD Bruce Logan said.
Artists are bubbling up from more sources — including TikTok, YouTube and a variety of playlists — and they also have more corporate opportunities, with fashion and food brands courting their endorsements alongside the prototypical trucks, boots and beers.
But the popularity is accompanied by concerns. Aldean’s “Small Town” video and a Wallen incident from 2021 put a spotlight on racism. Far-right media and conspiracy theorists quickly championed Anthony, though he has claimed political neutrality. Executives have privately lamented the possibility that country’s short-term popularity may feed long-term negative perceptions about it at a time when the industry is trying to diversify.
“We’re going to see more of these hot-button moments in country music,” Spotify Nashville head of editorial Rachel Whitney said. “There’s a lot of questionable history in the genre, and it’s really important that we all kind of do our homework, in a way, and make sure that what we do going forward is creating a welcoming space.”
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A U.K. Parliament committee is calling on the British government to ensure that artificial intelligence (AI) developers are prevented from the free use of copyright-protected musical works for training purposes — and to commit to abandoning much-criticized plans that opponents say would significantly weaken copyright protections for artists and rights holders.
A report from the Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) Committee published Wednesday (Aug. 30) says that any future legislation governing the use of AI technology in the United Kingdom, the world’s third-biggest music market, must not risk “reducing arts and cultural production to mere ‘inputs’ in AI development.”
Committee members also state that urgent action must be taken to improve protections for artists and creators against the misuse of their likenesses, image rights and performances by emerging technologies such as generative AI.
The report comes more than a year after U.K. government body The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) first proposed the introduction of a new text and data mining (TDM) exception allowing AI developers to freely use copyright-protected works for commercial purposes.
Those plans, announced by the IPO last June, gave rights holders no option to opt out of the TDM exception, although they did state that tech developers would still require “lawful access” to any copyright-protected data, enabling rights holders to agree to license fees and charge for access.
The proposals drew strong criticism from across the creative industries, with Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, CEO of umbrella trade body UK Music, describing them as a “green light to music laundering.” In response, the government announced in February that it had listened to the objections and would no longer be proceeding with the original plans.
The CMS Committee welcomed the change of course but warned that the government’s handling “shows a clear lack of understanding of the needs of the U.K.’s creative industries.”
“The chorus of warnings from musicians, authors and artists about the real and lasting harm a failure to protect intellectual property in a world where the influence of AI is growing should be enough for ministers to sit up and take notice,” said CMS Committee chair Dame Caroline Dinenage in a statement.
Dinenage said the government must follow through on its pledge to abandon plans for a text and data mining exception to copyright-protected works and regain the trust of the creative industries by developing “a copyright and regulatory regime that properly protects them” from the potential risks of AI.
The U.K.’s current legal framework, which contains TDM allowances for non-commercial research purposes while also allowing rights holders to commercially license their work, “provides an appropriate balance between innovation and creator rights,” said the committee report.
The U.K.’s moves to police the rapidly evolving AI sector comes as other countries and jurisdictions, including the United States, China and the European Union, explore their own paths toward regulating the nascent technology.
The EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act, which was first proposed in April 2021 and is now being negotiated among politicians in different branches of government, is leading the way as the world’s first comprehensive legislation around AI. It states that generative AI systems will be forced to disclose any content that they produce that is AI-generated — helping differentiate computer-created works from those authored by humans — and provide detailed, publicly available summaries of any copyright-protected music or data they have used for training purposes.
Other provisions in European law, most notably those contained in 2019’s EU Copyright Directive, also deal with AI and text and data mining exceptions of copyrighted content, such as music, although these are more robust than those initially proposed — and since abandoned — by the U.K. government. These EU provisions include allowing rights holders to stop AI systems from using their content for training purposes, or to limit which ones can in order to license that right.
Responding to the CMS Committee’s recommendations, BPI chief executive Jo Twist said it was “essential that artists and rightsholders can work in partnership with technology and that policies do not allow AI to get a free ride, but to always respect human creativity by seeking permission and remunerating the use of creative content.”
Accomplished talent buyers and entertainment executives Jenn Yacoubian and Stacy Vee have been appointed executive vps at Goldenvoice, the AEG Presents-owned concert and festival promoter behind marquee events like Coachella, Stagecoach, Just Like Heaven and more. Vee and Yacoubian will oversee the booking department, headquartered at Goldenvoice’s offices in Los Angeles, while continuing to act […]
A Las Vegas judge reportedly denied an attempt to dismiss a countersuit filed by Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter against Melissa Schuman – a former member of teen-pop group Dream who has long claimed that she was assaulted by the singer. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news According to TMZ, the judge decided on […]
A tribute band that was sued by Earth, Wind & Fire for trademark infringement is firing back with a bold counterargument: That the famed R&B act has actually abandoned any intellectual property rights to its name.
In a court filing on Wednesday (Aug. 30), the smaller band — which calls itself Earth Wind & Fire Legacy Reunion — argued that the original group had allowed so many tribute bands to use its name without repercussion that it can no longer claim exclusive rights to it.
“Due to the unchecked third-party use of the phrase, [EW&F] has abandoned ‘Earth, Wind & Fire,’ and [the name] has lost its trademark significance,” wrote attorneys for Substantial Music Group, which operates Legacy Reunion.
The new filing listed out a dozen other tribute acts that allegedly feature “Earth, Wind & Fire” as part of their name, including “September: A Tribute to Earth, Wind & Fire” and “Let’s Groove Tonight: The Ultimate Earth, Wind & Fire Tribute Band,” as well as even simpler names like simply “Earth Wind & Fire Tribute.”
“[The band] has taken no action to enforce its purported trademark rights against any of the third-party vocal and instrument groups that have been using the phrase,” Legacy Reunion wrote in Wednesday’s filing. “The present civil action represents the first occasion on which Counter-Defendant has sought to enforce its registered trademarks against another party.”
Earth, Wind & Fire has continued to tour since founder Maurice White died in 2016, led by longtime members Philip Bailey, Ralph Johnson and White’s brother, Verdine White. The band operates under a license from Earth Wind & Fire IP, a holding company owned by Maurice White’s sons that formally owns the name.
In a March lawsuit, that company accused Legacy Reunion of trying to trick consumers into thinking it was the real Earth Wind & Fire. Though it called itself a “Reunion,” the lawsuit said the tribute band contained only a few “side musicians” who briefly played with Earth, Wind & Fire many years ago.
“Defendants did this to benefit from the commercial magnetism and immense goodwill the public has for plaintiff’s ‘Earth, Wind & Fire’ marks and logos, thereby misleading consumers and selling more tickets at higher prices,” the group’s lawyers wrote.
Tribute acts — groups that exclusively cover the music of a particular band — are legally allowed to operate, and they often adopt names that allude to the original. But they must be clear that they are a tribute band, and they can get into legal hot water if they make it appear that they are affiliated with or endorsed by the original. In 2021, ABBA filed a similar trademark lawsuit against a band that had been touring under the name ABBA Mania, calling it “parasitic”; that suit was quickly settled after ABBA Mania agreed to stop using the name.
According to Earth, Wind & Fire’s lawyers, the use of “Legacy Reunion” was not a clear enough distinction. The lawsuit cited alleged examples of angry consumers who mistakenly bought tickets for the wrong band, including one that read, “This was not Earth Wind and Fire. NO Philip Bailey or Verdine White. It was just a band playing Earth Wind and Fire music. I purchased 3 tickets and I was very disappointed. It was truly false advertisement. I want my money back!!!!!”
Wednesday’s filing came as a so-called “answer and counterclaims” — a standard response to any lawsuit, in which a defendant like Legacy Reunion can formally deny the accusations and level their own at their opponent.
In its counterclaims, Legacy Reunion argued that the band’s lack of enforcement against other tribute bands means that its trademark to “Earth, Wind & Fire” should be formally “cancelled.”
Why is the music business picking on Brewster Kahle? All the technology activist wants to do with the Internet Archive, which he founded in 1996 and still chairs the board of, is create a digital library that offers “universal access to knowledge.” Isn’t that the promise of the digital age — that anyone with an internet connection can access anything ever created?
Turns out it’s more complicated than that. On Aug. 11, Universal Music, Sony Music and Concord Music filed a lawsuit, managed by the RIAA, against the Internet Archive, Kahle’s foundation, Kahle himself and an audio archivist who worked on the project, for infringing the copyrights to old recordings that the Internet Archive makes available through its “Great 78s” project to digitize old recordings originally issued as 78rpm records.
Already, in June 2020, four big book publishers had sued the Internet Archive for making available for a limited time copy-protected digital versions of books — first as many as it had in its collection or those of its partners, then during the pandemic, with its National Emergency Library, as many as users wanted. The publishers won on summary judgement, although the Internet Archive has said it will appeal.
The Internet Archive does lot of worthwhile work: its Wayback Machine tracks old web pages, offers access to considerable information in the public domain, and boasts an expansive collection of live Grateful Dead recordings. The Great 78s project makes available some old recordings that might otherwise be lost, but according to the RIAA lawsuit it also offers streaming access to plenty of recordings that are big business, including Bing Crosby’s iconic version of “White Christmas” — by some measures the most popular recordings of the 20th century — plus Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue,” Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” and Frank Sinatra’s “I’ve Got the World on a String.” The 78, may be an obscure format, but some of the music originally released that way is still relatively popular.
The Internet Archive responded in a blog post that it’s a “lawsuit targeting obsolete media.” “When people want to listen to music they go to Spotify,” Kahle said in a statement on the blog. (The Internet Archive did not comment other than pointing to this post.) “When people want to study 78rpm sound recordings as they were originally created, they go to libraries like the Internet Archive. Both are needed. There shouldn’t be conflict here.”
Except that many of those “78rpm sound recordings” aren’t obsolete at all — they’re the exact same recordings that are on Spotify, plus Apple Music and other streaming services. The versions available on the Internet Archive sound scratchy, but the recordings themselves weren’t originally created that way, and the wear on the particular 78s that were digitized by the archive is less about the history of recorded music than about how careful a particular person was with his or her records.
Kahle presents himself as a “digital librarian” who’s making books — and music and other media — available the way libraries always have. But it’s worth remembering that the legal arguments for the Internet Archive’s book-lending program aren’t based on the provision of copyright law that provides exceptions for libraries. Instead, the archive’s legal claim is that copying and distributing books temporarily is fair use. Which means that, if the Internet Archive had won, any library — or, importantly, perhaps any nonprofit entity that defined itself that way, or maybe any entity at all — could copy books it had purchased in order to distribute them. (The archive, in turn, says that its loss is a disaster for libraries, since they have to license books from publishers; but shouldn’t libraries — an essential public good — be funded by the public in a way that’s fair to creators and rightsholders?) Kahle, who has campaigned for years against what he sees as the excesses of copyright, seems to want to change the law.
“The fact that you own a particular copy doesn’t mean that you can make and distribute copies of that copy — this is basic copyright law,” said Maria Pallante, chief executive of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), which helped to guide the publishers’ lawsuit. “They were trying to bloat fair use, while also asserting a first sale defense that applies only to tangible goods, not bootleg digital files.”
The RIAA is suing at least partly to establish case law behind the part of the 2018 Music Modernization Act, which extended federal copyright protection to recordings made before 1972, which were previously only covered under state law. The labels may also want to collect damages: Since statutory damages for willful infringement can be set by judges or juries at up to $150,000, this case could potentially cost the Internet Archive as much as $412 million. “This is the kind of egregious behavior that the Music Modernization Act was intended to address,” says RIAA CEO Mitch Glazier.
Recordings were only covered under state law until the Copyright Act of 1976, but it wasn’t retroactive. And although some opponents of copyright characterized the Music Modernization Act as a land grab by media companies, that doesn’t hold up: Some state laws made it unclear whether copyright protection ever lapsed at all. Indeed, one reason that sound recordings copyrights were federalized in the first place was to help libraries and archives take advantage of the exceptions and limitations that exist in federal copyright legislation, including fair use and specific exceptions for libraries and archives.
As it happens, the subject of federal copyright protection for pre-1972 recordings was studied in a 2011 report by the Register of Copyrights, and substantial attention was devoted to “challenges of preservation and access.” “Substantively,” the report recommended, “the use of section 108 and the fair use exception should encourage more preservation and public access because they provide time—tested rules with which libraries and archives have experience.”
The law under which the Internet Archive is being sued was actually set up partly to help it and other archives, especially in its “orphan works” provision, the result of a compromise between Music Modernization Act proponents and opponents, that allows organizations to use pre-1972 recordings for non-commercial purposes after checking to make sure they’re not in commercial use. (There’s a procedure for this.) If the Great 78s project really intends to make available music that is in danger of disappearing, the law allows for that. Why aren’t Kahle and the Archive following it? It’s hard to imagine that Kahle doesn’t understand the law.
And that’s why the music business is picking on Brewster Kahle — because it sometimes seems as though the Internet Archive is as much about pushing the boundaries of copyright law as it is about preserving creative works in the first place. Libraries play a crucial role in any democratic society, and Kahle and the archive do a lot of important work. But so do the performers and songwriters — and, yes, the labels and publishers — who made all of these recordings possible in the first place.
Universal Music Group (UMG) has expanded its presence in the fast-growing Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region with the acquisition of United Arab Emirates-based music company Chabaka, it was announced Wednesday (Aug. 30). Founded in 2013 by brothers Ala’a and Tarek Makki, Chabaka provides digital distribution, marketing, publishing and label services and has deals […]
Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter is facing a third sexual abuse lawsuit, this time from an unnamed woman who claims he assaulted her when she was 15 years old.
In a complaint filed Monday in Las Vegas court, a Jane Doe accuser identified as “A.R.,” claims that Carter sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions in 2003, when he was in his early 20s, including several times on a yacht and once on a tour bus.
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She claims Carter “knowingly provided alcohol and drugs” and then assaulted her “despite her repeated refusals and requests for him to stop.” The incident left her with sexually-transmitted diseases and other lasting effects, she claims.
“The impacts of Carter’s sexual abuse are ceaseless, causing plaintiff severe emotional distress, physical anguish, intimacy issues, and other complex trauma,” the accuser’s lawyers write.
Carter is already facing lawsuits from Shannon “Shay” Ruth, a woman who says he raped her on a tour bus when she was 17 years old, and from Melissa Schuman, a former member of teen-pop group Dream who has long claimed that she was assaulted by the singer.
The singer strongly denies the accusations and is countersuing both women for defamation, saying he’s victim of “conspiracy” that aims to “to harass, defame and extort” him by exploiting the #MeToo movement.
In a statement responding to the latest case, Carter’s lawyers called the new accusations “ridiculous,” saying they had been thoroughly investigated and rejected as “meritless” by law enforcement at the time — and that police even concluded that A.R. “could herself have been charged with a crime” over the incident. They claimed she was also later “threatened with criminal charges for filing a false police report” over a separate matter.
“Now she’s at it yet again,” Carter’s lawyer Dale Hayes Jr. said in the statement. “But repeating the same false allegations in a new legal complaint doesn’t make them any more true. Nick is looking forward to the evidence being presented and the truth about these malicious schemes coming to light.”
Like the previous cases, the new lawsuit against Carter includes graphic details of alleged sexual assault.
The lawsuit claims the first incident occurred in August 2003 on Carter’s yacht, where he allegedly “directed” the intoxicated plaintiff to a cabin and “engaged in oral sexual intercourse with A.R. and penetrated her vagina with his genitals” without her consent.
Days later, she claims that Carter’s sister “encouraged” her to meet him on a bus, where he “coerced A.R. to orally copulate his genitals.” A month after that, another alleged assault took place on the yacht, during which Carter allegedly “enticed three other men” to watch them have sex.
“Defendant Carter instructed these same three male friends to observe his assault of A.R. through a window hatch on the boat,” her lawyers write, adding that he “attempted to perform anal sex” on her during this incident “despite her repeated refusals and requests for him to stop.”
Later that year, the accuser claims she and her mother reported the incident to police in Pennsylvania, where she lived at the time.
In their statement on Wednesday, Carter’s attorneys insisted that police had cleared him of wrongdoing after that investigation. But John Kawai, the lawyer who filed Monday’s case, said in a statement that his civil allegations were not foreclosed by the lack of criminal charges: “Abusers can take notice that just because they avoided prison doesn’t mean they don’t have to answer to a jury for their actions.”
The other lawsuits against Carter remain pending, as does his counter-suit. Lawyers for his accusers pushed to dismiss Carter’s defamation case under Nevada’s so-called anti-SLAPP law, arguing that he was using litigation to retaliate against an accuser who was speaking out. But in March, a Nevada judge rejected that request and allowed Carter’s case to move forward.
After partnering with Brent Faiyaz earlier this year, UnitedMasters continues to stockpile their roster with more proven talent by joining forces with EARTHGANG. The newly minted partnership between the rap duo and UM will allow the Atlanta MCs to fortify their lanes as independent artists for the first time in their careers while remaining at […]
It’s early afternoon on Friday (August 25), the last day of class for students at this year’s No Label Academy (NLA) music business program. IDK, his team and I are driving to Harvard Medical School for two lectures on mental health. He maintains a calm demeanor, and is focused and pensive, as he prepares for one last session of helping his nearly two dozen students realize their personal and artistic potential.
“I felt like there was a lot of people like me who may not have the academic accolades but have the capability to be successful in music,” IDK tells Billboard in the backseat of a black Chevy Suburban. “They just needed the confidence.”
Two years ago, the Maryland rapper-producer and entrepreneur (born Jason Mills) and Boston-based non-profit No Label sought to break down the barriers to entry into the music industry by holding their first-ever No Label Academy. The nine-day seminar, held at Harvard University offers advice, resources, job opportunities and internships surrounding various topics in the music industry, and is “aimed at democratizing and improving opportunities for students from systemically disadvantaged backgrounds interested in careers in the music business,” a press release explains. The program is open to applicants ages 18 to 25, regardless of collegiate status, and also includes wellness exercises like morning workouts, meditation and daily affirmations.
This year, NLA returned for its second iteration — and invited Billboard to sample the experience, paying for this reporter’s lodging and transportation to visit the academy. Due to the busy schedules of IDK and No Label’s co-founders Marcelo Hanta-Davis and Miles Weddle, the program took around a year and a half to curate. After an application process consisting of a resumé submission, interview rounds and a video essay, 23 students were chosen to participate in the immersive music business course.
2021’s guest speakers included the late Virgil Abloh, Mike Dean and Zane Lowe. This year’s iteration follows suit with lectures from star rappers Roddy Ricch and Joey Badass, award-winning actress Issa Rae, celebrity stylist Bloody Osiris and more. And thanks to high-profile sponsors like Nike, Dior, Converse, Jordan Brand, Warner Music Group, Microsoft, Timberland and YouTube, transportation, lodging and meals are fully covered — making the program free for the students.
Joey Badass lecturing No Label Academy’s 2023 student cohort at Harvard University’s Science and Engineering Complex.
Lev Diamond
“Most stuff in entertainment is driven by financial decisions – and that’s not a core component to what it is we do here,” says Weddle, who is also a Harvard alumnus. “We’ve never paid a speaking fee, so every artist who comes here is really doing it because they want to give back to the community and educate individuals. The primary driver of our ability to do this is sponsor dollars.”
Weddle and fellow Harvard alumnus Marcelo Hanta-Davis founded No Label in 2018 to “utilize hip-hop and popular culture to make education more accessible,” says Hanta-Davis. “We’ve found this niche space of bringing hip-hop and academia together.” The idea for NLA came to fruition after the co-founders invited IDK to give a lecture on criminal justice reform at the Ivy League school for No Label’s Uncut speaker series in February 2020.
“I’m a middle-class person who went to prison, partially because I went to a bad school in a bad area,” the 31-year-old told Billboard in 2020. “Then I go back four times on the same exact charge … because I didn’t take home detention or violated this or that. Knowledge and education are important for empowerment, especially in the Black community.”
Hanta-Davis and Weddle maintained their relationship with IDK throughout the pandemic and combined their platforms to ideate No Label Academy. “We determined that there was a need for some kind of music education, and we thought we had a platform based in terms of our relationship with Harvard as alumni,” says Weddle.
IDK made sense as a professor given both the real-life hardships he endured and the first-hand experience he has a signed musician. In the mid-2010s IDK (which stands for “Ignorantly Delivering Knowledge”) began releasing mixtapes as an independent artist. In 2019, his label Clue Records signed a joint venture with Warner Records and released his critically acclaimed breakthrough album Is He Real? the same year. Four albums followed including 2021’s USEE4YOURSELF which reached No. 164 on the Billboard 200 and this year’s F65, which reached No. 21 on the Heatseekers Albums chart and features other big names like NLE Choppa, Musiq Soulchild, Snoop Dogg and more.
But as much success as he’s had as an artist, he’s finding even more satisfaction in his new role as a professor — to the point where he may consider teaching above making music in the future. “I’ve seen a few people cry a few times. I see people really trust the way that I think and the way that I look at things — their willingness to listen and learn,” he says. “There was a Harvard professor [who] is making synthetic hearts… he said he was inspired by what I do and wants to change the way he teaches his course after coming to my class two times. For me, to come from not really graduating high school properly, it means a lot.”
When asked if Harvard has remained cooperative while hosting NLA, he answers vaguely but alludes to the recent reversal of affirmative action in college admissions proving this year’s planning process to be difficult — even though NLA is merely using the institution’s facilities. (Back in June, the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in college admissions, “declaring race cannot be a factor and forcing institutions of higher education to look for new ways to achieve diverse student bodies,” according to AP.)
“I can’t really speak on the affirmative action thing, honestly,” he says. “It’s still an ongoing thing that we are working to make sure we’re doing right in representing Harvard in a way that they felt was good and also we felt was accurate.”
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Once we arrive at Harvard Medical School, IDK meets up with LaShyra “Lash” Nolen, who walks us inside. Nolen is in her last year at the school, and is the first Black woman to be named Harvard Medical School’s class president. She is an advisor to NLA (along with Brian Price, clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School) and the next speaker for the day.
The last day of class at this year’s No Label Academy is almost identical to the previous four days of the week. Students start the day with 6:00 a.m. workouts, followed by breakfast, meditations, then lectures running from 9:00 a.m. to around 5:00 p.m., with breaks and lunch in between. Each day has a theme – like monetization, financial literacy or mental health — along with surprise guest lecturers.
“My own experience is probably the most important factor to this course,” says IDK. “When you go to school, oftentimes the people who are teaching, especially in music, aren’t currently practicing. And even if they are, they may not have the time to practice full-time. Every guest speaker, at least 99% of them, are personal friends, or people that I’ve met along my journey, and I just reach out to them. I personally believe they add value to what we are trying to do and our mission.”
Following Nolen, Chicago artist Saba and TDE rapper Ab-Soul join Friday’s class to discuss their personal bouts with mental health. The latter opens up about his suicide attempt, what he prefers to call his “near-death experience,” fighting addiction and moving forward. Saba primarily touches on grief (the lyricist lost a handful of his family and friends to violence in a short amount of time) and the pressures of fame and being a provider.
“I think grief is one of the most informative experiences,” Saba says to the class. “Grief can be so many different versions of pain. It’s inevitable and shows you yourself. Grief taught me that everybody going through some s–t.”
Whereas the past few weeks concluded with studio time, Friday evening is more celebratory, with a joint graduation ceremony/fashion show dinner ceremony held at Harvard Art Museum. The students walk a rose-lined runway to accept their certificates of completion while modeling their custom Dior uniforms, designed by IDK and Kim Jones, the fashion house’s men’s artistic director. Rapper and Massachusetts native Bia also stops by to perform at the students’ after party.
NLA 2023 graduate Zahir Muhammad, a 21-year-old rising film/music video director and senior at LSU, says the entire experience has been incredible for him. “I love learning [and] it’s been great having no limit on how much I can learn from everybody here,” he shares.
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“The first day of class, the theme was vulnerability,” Muhammad continues. “IDK said, ‘If you all can make it through this day, then you can make it through anything the entire week.’ None of us knew why he said that, but that whole day was [us] sharing the things we hated about [ourselves]. Everybody was crying but supporting each other. He basically broke us all the way down and built us all the way back up by the end of the week.”
In the future, as funding and time permit, IDK, Weddle and Hanta-Davis plan to expand NLA to colleges and universities nationwide.
“Sometimes we don’t acknowledge the knowledge that we have, because we may have not accomplished some of the things that society deems makes [us] valuable,” says IDK. “This program is a demonstration of perseverance, belief and the ability to never take ‘no’ for an answer — and showing how far that can take you if you have an actual plan that makes sense.”
IDK and No Label Academy’s 2023 student cohort.
Tito Garcia