DJ Premiere
Music industry conferences offer fledgling artists and executives opportunities to receive insight from respected experts in the field. But many independent acts can't afford the conference registration fees or costs required to travel to New York, Los Angeles or Austin for the events.
Hip hop activist and media assassin Harry Allen has a solution for the rap community. Allen has enlisted the support of legendary artists Chuck D, Questlove and DJ Premier, as well as other respected hip hop personalities, to offer GrindXDesign ("grind by design"), an 8-week series of 60-90-minute conference call meetings, moderated by the music business veterans.
DJ Premier, A-list producer and founding member of Gang Starr, will team up with Jay-Z engineer Young Guru on Wednesday, August 29 at 8 p.m. ET, to offer GrindXDesign's first session. They will discuss mastering production and songwriting.
The call will begin with Allen interviewing Premier and Young Guru for 15-20 minutes and conclude with a 30-minute Q&A dialogue with attendees.
The 8-week program will also tackle touring and showmanship with Chuck D and Questlove; pitching magazines with The Source and XXL editors-in-chiefs Kim Osorio and Vanessa L. Satten, respectfully; the art of mixtapes; how to get a record deal; understanding music publishing; developing social media strategies and more.
"Our objective is equipping people who want careers in hip hop with the right information at an incredibly low cost, certainly cheaper than what even small mistakes in any of these areas could cost them," Allen said in a statement.
Allen also noted the conveniences of the conference call platform. "What's incredibly exciting about GrindXDesign is that if you're a beatmaker in Argonne, WI, through digital conference call technology, you'll have as much success to DJ Premier or Young Guru as someone from New York or L.A.," he said. "If you want the mixtape success of a Lil' Wayne but need to understand what makes this format hot, you'll be able to listen to and maybe get a question in to DJ Drama or the founder of DatPiff.com., the dominant mixtape web site."
To register for the weekly workshops visit GrandXDesign.com or email GXDinfo@gmail.com. The cost for all eight courses, conducted on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET, is $97