HANG Hip hop grime conference scotland

HANG, Scotland’s first hip hop and grime conference unveils full programme

The full programme is unveiled for HANG (Hip-Hop Aimed Networking with Grime), Scotland’s first ever hip hop and grime conference. The event is also asking for applications from artists to perform at a live showcase. 

Introducing HANG, Scotlands very first music industry conference dedicated solely to the hip-hop and grime scene currently flourishing in the country. Taking place online (1100-2000) and live (2000-2200) at Glasgow’s SWG3 on Saturday 31st July, HANG aims to empower members of Scotland’s hip hop and grime communities and celebrate the diversity of voices reflecting the country in the 21st-century. AMS are also proud to be one of the many sponsors and supporters of the inaugural event.

The all-day educational and cultural programme will see key speakers Tiffany Calver, host of BBC Radio 1Xtra’s Rap Show, Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) winner Nova, Aberdeen MC Ransom FA and Orwell Prize winner Darren McGarvey (AKA Loki the Scottish Rapper) all joined by experts from the industry, community organisations and artists from across Scotland.

New names revealed for HANG include Jill Brown, founder of Scotland’s first label for ex-offenders, broadcaster, musician and champion of new Scottish music Vic Galloway; Henca Maduro, founder of Europe’s largest urban music conference New Skool Rules; Khaleda Noon, the award-winning director of Intercultural Youth Scotland and Zander Whitehead (aka Fliptrix) founder of stalwart UK hip hop label High Focus Records.

Open to all ages and abilities, from fan to established artist, HANG’s free programme of workshops gives insight into the core elements of hip hop culture such as breakdancing with Tesko and Shelltoe Mel of Glasgow dance group TheDimeStop; spoken word with EmpressDave HookBecci Wallace and Washington, and DJ-ing with Steg G and DIJA.

Throughout the day, participants can watch the premiere of graffiti artist Rogue One re-creating the HANG logo in the iconic setting of Glasgow’s SWG3 where the event will culminate with a live showcase from Nova (the Edinburgh artist behind Re-Up, the first grime record to win the SAY Award) rising Dundee artist and SAMA winner India Ros3, Ayrshire rapper BemzMistah Bohze of Glasgow’s label Southside Deluxe, and two artists invited to perform exclusively for the event.

Darren McGarvey says: “HANG presents one of the first opportunities for artists from different generations, social backgrounds and genres to come together and share in a collective experience. Hip hop culture in Scotland is well developed, but not well integrated. This leaves many artists feeling like they exist on the outside and that the action is all happening somewhere else. HANG, in my view, could be a way to smash this perception, by supporting people to realise the truth – together we are stronger.”

HANG aims to empower artists with the skills to take charge of their careers with a series of free panel discussions on topics such as how to pitch your music to radio with Galloway, Go Radio’s Aarti Joshi and Delaina Sepko of Sunny G’s Beats & Breaks show; what platforms best support hip hop and grime with Henca Maduro, Clash Magazine editor Robin Murray and Sami Omar, founder of Glasgow-based music platform Up2standard; and how to monetise your music with Zander Whitehead (Fliptrix), Susan Montgomery of 23rd Precinct Music Publishing and Kwame Safo of the PRS Foundation’s Power Up initiative to support Black music creators and professionals.

McGarvey, Sinkler and Ransom FA – presenter of BBC THREE’s UK-wide Rap Tour – will begin the day with a discussion on the history of hip hop in Scotland, chaired by journalist Arusa Qureshi.

Partnered by Creative Scotland, HANG is presented by the Scottish Alternative Music Awards (SAMA), which is a signatory of the PRS’s Keychange commitment to include 50% of women and underrepresented genders by 2022 in programming, staffing and beyond.

The last discussion of the day will feature Calver exploring her career from blogger to becoming the first female host of BBC Radio 1Xtra’s The Rap Show with BBC Introducing in Scotland presenter and artist Shereen Cutkelvin.

Further challenging preconceptions about hip hop and grime will be a discussion on the importance of the genres to the wider community with Karen Dunbar (the comedian fronted hip hop workshops over lockdown), Intercultural Youth Scotland founder Khaleda Noon, Donna Boyd of Making Recovery Visible and Jill Brown, founder of Conviction Records.

The group will discuss how hip hop and spoken word informs their own approaches to community engagement, from its role in dry club nights, collaborative performances with refugees, songwriting workshops in prisons and more. Brown found a majority of inmates she worked with were drawn to hip hop. That’s a reflection of the genre’s burgeoning popularity but also how hip hop values authentic, unique voices.

Brown says: “I set up my label at the end of last year after leading songwriting workshops for young men in Glasgow’s Barlinnie Prison. Hip hop culture, and its many musical forms, plays a crucial role in the lives of many of those on the margins of society in Scotland and this event recognises this. You can’t underestimate the power of giving people a voice.”

HANG comes at a time when hip hop and grime can no longer be relegated to the edges of Scottish culture.

“Hip hop in Scotland has been developing for as long as hip hop itself,” says McGarvey. “But it has been criminally under-studied and reported due to a fixation on the part of Scotland’s cultural institutions on more traditional forms of art and music. The truth is, Scotland’s cultural image and standing will benefit immensely from embracing hip hop rather than treating it like a dirty little secret.

“In a nation where experts scratch their heads, desperate to ‘engage’ young people in creativity and literacy, hip hop provides endless opportunities and some of the world’s best practitioners.”

 

Artist invitation

Two artists are invited to perform sets at HANG at Glasgow’s SWG3 on Saturday 31st July 2021. Artists are asked to submit a link to two tracks plus a short biography to [email protected] before 5pm on Friday 18th June.

 

Tickets

Tickets are available from 9am on Wednesday 9th June from Eventbrite.

Day passes for the online activities are free, and tickets to attend the socially-distanced evening showcase are £5 plus booking fee.

All day time programming will be available for free on @officialSAMA Facebook & YouTube channels. For the full programme visit officialsama.com/hang


ams glasgow may playlist

The AMS Glasgow May playlist is here!

Sunnier times are surely ahead. And with that hope, comes our fresh monthly playlist…

The AMS Glasgow regular staff playlist feature is here once again. This month features some darker sounds, packed with angst about the past, but also some rock and indie bangers, looking forward to the future and a brighter day. A playlist for the country’s mood right now? As usual, we’re featuring Glasgow and Scotland’s best up-and-coming talent including this time, Dinosaur Pile Up, Ceiti, Tigercub, Nothing But Thieves and Against the Current.

Stay tuned for the next AMS Glasgow playlist coming next month, and look back on previous playlists here.

Listen via Spotify using the player below now.


Steg G interview -hip-hop hip hop is for everyone AMS uk Scotland glasgow edinburgh

Steg G Interview- "The best hip-hop is still to be made"

Words: Isobel Trott

Ahead of the free hip-hop workshop he is running for us on 3rd May, academic, teacher, hip-hop head and musician Steg G took some time out of his hectic teaching and music making schedule to tell us a little bit more about what they can expect from the digital workshop. Steg dives into why teaching hip-hop in various contexts is so important, and gives us some expert knowledge and recommendations on the flourishing and varied Scottish hip-hop scene.


So Steg, what are you up to at the moment? What’s happening for you music-wise?

I’m always working on music and got a few new projects in the pipeline at the moment. About to relaunch my record label as well in the autumn and got quite an ambitious plan for that too. And definitely excited about that.

 

You’re also involved with Sunny G Radio in Glasgow, is that right?

Yeah, I’m the station manager for Sunny G Radio. I love being part of Sunny G, it helps to do a lot of good work for the community. It helps support local artists, it helps to join the dots of community life together, such as [with] musicians, with activists, with community workers, with young people, with older people. I really see Sunny Govan as like a tapestry of Glasgow. We’ve got like a hip-hop element, a folk element, our young people, our old people, our recovery element, you know, it’s just all these different patches that make it a very colourful broadcast. That’s how I like to see it anyway!

And how’s the fundraising going for Sunny G?

Yeah fundraising is good... Fundraising is always challenging for being a small Scottish charity, we kinda rely on fundraising, even pre-COVID as well we would be quite active fundraising. Sometimes it’s hard to get money for radio activities. Although that’s changed a little bit – changed a lot actually because of COVID, because people now realise the value of radio. Whereas pre-COVID people were sort of bypassing radio for new media, etc, etc, etc. Not realising that accessibility is really, really important. And also what we offer is up to the minute – up to the second – updates, so that people can find out a bit what’s happening.

At the moment we’re [all] thinking about reopening – as in society reopening. So that means certain businesses are reopening. But they’re only maybe half reopening. So we’re hoping to attract some advertising to let the public know ‘this business’ has reopened ‘this day’. But there’s going to be some conditions to that as well.

 

In terms of the hip-hop workshop on 3rd May, you’ve got coming up with us, could you tell people a bit more about that, what it’s going to involve? What they can expect?

Well, firstly, the hip-hop workshops we do with the Academy is fun. You don’t need to have a big, massive, huge experience of making hip-hop or being involved in hip-hop. If you enjoy hip-hop music, that does help a lot, but certainly, we will help participants learn more about how they can refine their rap skills. Maybe they’ve never rapped before and its all about helping them find their voice and give them confidence to express themselves. Because putting yourself out there sometimes – well, it is – it’s really personal. And that can be a big jump for people going from the paper to performing. 

We give people who are maybe a bit more advanced in songwriting and lyric writing some tips, some tricks, some examples about how they can refine what they do. And again, we never really want to the take away from the participants’ creativity, we just want to support them to grow in a direction that suits them. Not everyone wants to be a rapper though, a lot of people want to be involved in hip-hop and find out how to make music or record raps or get into the music production part of it too. So we talk about that. And we show people how they can make music using a phone, or a tablet, or a laptop using free software which is widely available.

I’m a big advocate of music for everybody. That’s one of the things that attracted me to hip-hop initially, the fact that this is music which does not necessarily have a barrier to entry. You don’t necessarily need to save up to buy an instrument. You don’t necessarily need to spend years on your music theory. If you’re creative and you’re passionate and you’re wanting to get involved in music, then hip hop’s always been a great vehicle for that. And I always encourage people to get involved in music because it’s a vehicle for everyone. We live in such a time of technology it has made it… not necessarily dead easy, because you still need to be creative, still need to have good ideas to make music… But the technology can help us to speed up the process, and maybe get rid of a lot of the… a lot of time that we take maybe to even master [things like] playing a guitar. We can bypass that a little bit with technology these days. And that’s not taking away from the music that’s made via technology, the music is still incredible and still very, very expressive and creative. It’s just, I like people to know that music is for everyone. Whether they’ve done music before or are not experienced in music. And hip-hop is a great tool for that.

You’ve run a few short courses for us before. I know you’ve had some interesting people turn up like Karen Dunbar before. What’s the response to those been like?

Oh, yeah, I love the short courses that we do because I never know who’s going to come through the door – metaphorically speaking on Teams at the moment. But I always get inspired by the participants too. I get inspired because they are keen to develop their musicality, and that inspires me to see they have made a jump, a significant jump, to go and get involved in music education and a music training programme.

I’m also very inspired by the diversity of the participants. And of course, there’s young people, there’s older people, there’s celebrities, there’s Reverends, and everything in between. Really to see how such a wide demographic can embrace and get something out of being involved in making hip hop music is dead exciting. And I also almost get an insight into the future of Scottish hip-hop – because I get to see the talent before everyone else does. So I quite enjoy that too.

 

It’s interesting you say there’s been such a broad demographic in attendance and lots of people seem to be interested in it. Do you think hip-hop tends to have a stigma around it? And some people have a certain pre-judgement about it?

Yeah, there’s a stigma. Or, an idea of what people think hip-hop is. Unfortunately, that’s due to mainstream media, sensationalist journalism, etc. The hip-hop that we hear on the radio, see on TV, it’s not really reflective of ‘true’ hip hop. That’s reflecting a mainstream Hollywood record industry style of hip-hop. And not necessarily hip-hop that gets played in people’s houses, or people’s cars or people’s Spotify playlists, you’ll find that’s a lot more underground what people are listening to as well.

I like people to know that music is for everyone. Whether they’ve done music before or are not experienced in music. And hip-hop is a great tool for that.” 


It’s good it’s increasingly being seen as more open. And that hip-hop is being taught more as well!

I think people are seeing themselves reflected back in hip-hop and Scotland as well. For the first time, people are seeing people like myself, people are seeing female MCs, people are seeing transgender rappers, people are seeing older people, younger people, celebrities, all getting involved in it. And not necessarily seeing big gold chains and that model of gangsta rap that we get subjected to a lot. It’s really starting to relate to more people as a vehicle. And people are thinking, ‘I could do this’ or ‘I could use this in my music,’ or ‘I could use this to express myself as well’.

Also, I know that people are sometimes scared to go to hip-hop shows because they don’t know what to expect. They think that crowd is gonna be hostile, or a testosterone-filled environment, which is not a friendly place to be. It’s the total opposite! In Scotland it’s the total opposite. When people do go to these events, they find that everyone appreciates people for coming and [they] want to get involved and to find out more. We don’t have a certain ‘dress code’,  people can look like they want to look. And also the music that people are rapping and performing is relating to a wider audience too. So people might come and they might go and witness a rap battle, but when they go, they realise it’s just normal people having fun, enjoying music, and they’ll tend to bring the friends along the next time. So I definitely see it building.

 

In terms of the Scottish hip-hop scene, from what I can tell it seems like there’s definitely a real underground flourishing scene going on. What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah Scottish hip-hop is at a very exciting place at the moment. It is a little bit behind England. And England is a little bit behind the rest of the world as well [laughs]. We’re also starting to see English MCs like slowthai being critically successful, critically acclaimed with their music [globally], people like Stormzy are always top of the charts. There’s also an underground movement in UK hip-hop as well.

Scotland is a little bit behind that, Scotland has always been a little bit behind on media because of geographic position as well. And maybe a little bit of the ‘Scottish Cringe’ has held us back throughout these years. Scottish people used to hate to hear themselves back in the media. They call it the ‘Scottish Cringe’, and basically we were told – taught by school – that our accents, our voices, sounded lower-class. Because we never used to hear Scottish accents on TV, that’s why I didn’t hear people sing in Scottish accents, the only one that we’d hear was The Proclaimers! Years and years ago. And they would get a lot of slagging for that too.

But you know, there’s always been Scottish bands, from punk to funk, to folk to rock. They all use their own accents now. So we’ve come through quite a transition as a culture, as a society, where we’re embracing our own accents, own words, own identity. And that’s a very very powerful thing. Again, the media, the mainstream things like the BBC saying that you need an Inverness accent – that this is the acceptable Scottish accent. If you live in Pollock in Glasgow, your accent is only on the TV for comedy purposes, mostly at the butt of a joke. Thankfully we have people like Loki now who is challenging that and flipping that narrative on its head now. So exciting times for Scotland for Scottish hip-hop. And I do feel like we are on the cusp of having our first superstars, whoever they may be. I don’t know who that is. Obviously, I did wish I knew who that was [laughs]! But I think we’re on the cusp of that, well, that’s this year or next year, but very soon.

How about yourself, how did you get into hip hop? What introduced you to it?

I got into it because I was always into music, playing guitar. Then I discovered hip hop through breakdancing, through what they call B-boying. But I was really into the music first, the dancing was sort of a reaction to the music. But I loved the fact the music was so different from the music that I was being brought up on. I was brought up on my parents’ music collection and their influences. But when I heard hip-hop it was raw drum machines, samples, and recorders. It sounded like music of my generation. It wasn’t my parents music, it was something that was new, something that was fresh, something that I could get involved in. I always loved a bit of hip-hop, even being a white person from Pollock in Glasgow, I always knew that hip-hop was for everyone because the messages rappers would say – it was always about reflecting their environment, reflecting their community, reflecting their own experiences. And I love that about hip-hop, so I really got into it quite quickly, and stuck to my guns, and said I’m just gonna go blinkered, do hip-hop, and be a hip-hop artist.

 

Which artists acted as your first introduction into hip-hop? Who are your favourites?

I have to say Public Enemy. Public Enemy was a massive influence on me for lots of reasons. They had the Sonics. They had the message. They had the team behind them as well. Public Enemy was a movement. It wasn’t just one person rapping a song, it was – let’s reflect our community, our society, let’s try and change, let’s educate people. And let’s empower people as well.

So I really liked that about Public Enemy. But then technically, Chuck D is a great lyricist, he’s got the voice of power, such a powerful voice – and the production of Public Enemy is so intricate and layered, and dense and musical. But it sounds almost like a wall of sound at some points just due to how advanced they were back in the day. It still really sounds good too. And Public Enemy are still doing great records in 2020 as well, making amazing albums right now. So really, it’s about the day. Lots of people coming up now – far too many probably to list! But then I’m also the kind of person who doesn’t look back too much in hip-hop. I like to look forward and see what’s coming next, what’s coming up right now. I will look back more one day, but not jus’ now.

Yeah. It’s easy to get nostalgic about.

Yeah, I think so! There’s still a lot to be done, that’s what I think. And I think, I mean, I’m optimistic, but I think the best hip-hop is still to be made…

 

In terms of teaching hip-hop and applying it to education and in music schools, what do you think the value of that is? Why hasn’t it been done as much as other areas of music teaching?

Yes. It’s a great question. I guess there’s a few reasons for that. There’s been a stereotype of hip-hop, that it’s derogatory to women, it causes violence, it’s materialistic – that’s not going to work in the classroom. That stereotype straightaway is a block. But again, that’s the element of hip-hop that people experience through the mainstream. So if you are an educator, and you don’t know hip-hop, and you’re only exposed to Tupac, and NWA and Dr. Dre or whoever, then that’s what you’ll think hip-hop is. So it won’t translate to the classroom. But if you experience some of the great lyricists, some of the great hip-hop records, some of the canon of hip-hop, you’ll learn why that’s respected and why it’s part of the canon. Then that certainly can access the curriculum and open up teachers’ minds.

Although teachers are changing. A lot of hip-hop people are now involved in education. Whereas before it was maybe traditional musicians or rock musicians or mainstream musicians that moved into education. Now hip-hop artists are moving into education as well. And not just music education – and not just hip-hop artists! Hip-hop fans can be head teachers, they can be police people, they can be the pillars of our society now. And I know that they are.

Hip-hop’s not a scary thing. And also, it would be silly for teachers and academics not to recognise that’s where the kids are listening to and learning from, in terms of engaging in music. Hip-hop is a massive thing in communities. My experiences in communities in Scotland, hip hop’s a massive thing for young people in communities in Scotland, and I think teachers are kinda catching up on that and thinking, how can we embrace this energy? How can we channel this into positivity and how can we use this as part of our curriculum as well?

I do see pockets in Scotland, like I worked in Peterhead, and Peterhead is a very remote, North of Scotland, fishing Village. I was sent up there to do some work last year. I didn’t know what to expect, but all the kids up there were listening to hardcore drill music! They’re listening to the same music the kids in London are listening to and making the same music. Because of the internet there is no such barrier anymore. There’s not even that time delay. Whereas before, you’d have to wait til a record came out or seen a video on MTV. It’s quite instant now. And it’s great to see the young people up there – and I’m talking people from 8 till 14/15, – kids at that age are really into hip-hop music. And thankfully the teachers up there identified that and knew there wasn’t a lot of educators in that area, so they brought me up to help get the kids a little plan of action and to give them some tips to make their music.

 

It’s sort of taking away those negative attitudes towards it and finding the value in it to teach it as well? It’s such a global thing, it would be silly not to acknowledge its power and its influence?

Yep. What I find myself teaching young people a lot is Literacy as well. Sometimes our Literacy or our English lessons get neglected in school because of the way they’re delivered. People are not interested. But if you talk about some of the poetic techniques that you might learn in English, but learn it in a hip hop context, then you start to learn what alliteration means, what assonance means, you start to learn more about language. And that’s a great skill for young people.

  

Yes! Much more accessible to some kids than just teaching Shakespeare or something?

Yeah, yeah. And that makes young people more confident with using language and grammar. And that obviously gives them some great life skills as well.

 

Like you said, using the patterns and rhythms and rhythms of hip-hop can be used to teach subjects like English too – writing and poetry. As well as they themes and stories a lot of hip-hop talks about can be applied to History and other subjects. It’s great more people are aware of it in that sense, as well as just teaching the music.

Exactly. There’s a lot of life skills to be learned from getting involved in hip hop, like any musical genre, there’s a lot of skills that will benefit people in lots of ways throughout their life.

Is there anything else you’re working on at the moment? 

It’s all top secret the moment! [laughs] – I hate to say it but yeah. No, it’s not top secret, there’s just nothing 100% confirmed at the moment. I’m waiting for a couple of commissions to be confirmed in the next couple of weeks. And then I will know my lay land for the next few weeks. But I’m always keeping busy, I guess my big news is the relaunch of a record label Power Cut Productions to give a home for Scottish hip-hop artists again.

I did notice through my last release – my last release did extremely well in terms of sales and engagement. So I definitely see a growth and interest in Scottish hip-hop and music, but nowhere really promotes and supports and gives home to Scottish hip-hop. So that’s what we’re aiming to do for the winter season.

 

One last thing, if you were to recommend three Scottish hip-hop artists for people to go to and listen to if they hadn’t heard any Scottish rap before, who would you suggest they listen to?

Straight away my mind goes to Empress, Empress being one of the greatest rappers in Scotland. She’s based in Paisley, she just put out an album last year called Love Wins. She’s just a fire rapper. Going to have to say Loki, Loki he just gets better with age like a fine wine you know! Or should we say whiskey in this country! [laughs]. Even though he’s in the public eye in a different light, that’s made his pen game a lot stronger when it comes to hip-hop. Because in his heart, Loki is a hip-hop head, who happens to write books and make TV programmes. But hip-hop is his thing. And really he’s just been phenomenal. I don’t know if the world sees that, but his hip-hop is at top tier at the moment, I think it’s getting overshadowed by his TV and media coverage, etc.

And I’m going to shout out my good friend Dave Hook from Stanley Odd as well. I think that’s three good examples. Stanley Odd are a more…  You can’t really put Stanley Odd in a bracket either, they’re such a great innovative outfit. Poignant lyrics, heartfelt songs, some songs you can just party to as well. So that’d be by three artists. Empress, Loki and Stanley Odd.

Sign up to the upcoming free workshop with Steg G here.

Check out Steg G online: Website | Facebook | Twitter

Words and Interview: Isobel Trott
26 April 2021


off the record online conference 2020

Look back on the best of 'Off The Record' Virtual Conference 2020!

We are the proud supporters of the Off The Record podcast, as well as the recent conference – which was held online last year. Check out the 2020 conference including a talk with our own Melisa Kelly and alumni Zoe Graham.

Off the Record was founded in 2013 and is a series of events for young musicians and those who want to work in the industry. It is open to anyone aged 16-25, and is designed to equip young people with music business knowledge, information and skills to help them forge a career in music. In 2020 their music conference was held virtually, and featured events focused on music photography, how to get played on BBC Music Introducing, getting funding, how to build your brand and how to go freelance.

Look back on some of the best talks and discussions – including this one (below) featuring our very own Melisa Kelly all about How To Make Money from your Music Online! Melisa joins fellow panelists to discuss their practical tips for building a streaming presence, what worked for them and how you can build your streaming audiences across all streaming platforms. And check out AMS alumni Zoe Graham on a fascinating panel discussion about how to get the most out of streaming your live performance here.

Watch the full conference here. Or check out the Off The Record Podcasts here.

About Off The Record

Off The Record was founded by Community Interest Company Wide Events in 2013 and is a series of events for young musicians and those who want to work in the industry. It is open to anyone aged 16-25, and is designed to equip young people with music business knowledge, information and skills to help them forge a career in music.

Since 2013, Off The Record has organised and delivered 16 events for young people across Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Kirkcaldy, Kilmarnock, Glenrothes, Dundee, Aberdeen, Galashiels and Dumfries, providing insights and advice on how to pursue a career in music. This has enabled participants to build relationships with organisations including the BBC, DF Concerts, The Skinny magazine, numerous managers, promoters, labels and more.

In 2015 Off The Record was the first music business event in the UK to commit to a gender balanced speaker programme. The event always takes place in wheelchair accessible venues and is committed to providing opportunities for young people in the top 15% areas on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation.

 

Current Projects

In November 2018, we hosted two Off The Record events in Dundee and Edinburgh to celebrate the Year of Young People.  The events targeted the 16-25 age group and included daytime seminars, discussions, interactive workshops and networking activities featuring a host of music industry professionals from across Scotland and beyond.  Topics covered included monetising music, releasing music, organising and getting gigs, music publishing, streaming, working in music and more. In addition, an evening showcase took place in each city featuring performances from some of the country’s most exciting and diverse young musicians.

These events were supported by the Scottish Government’s Youth Music Initiative (YMI) programme, which is administered by Creative Scotland. The events featured key figures from the music business taking part in seminars, workshops and advice sessions – all geared to demystifying the industry and providing the basic knowledge to get started.

 


karen dunbar interview academy of music and sound ams hip hop workshops online

Karen Dunbar on Hip Hop Workshops, the arts, and why she gave up watching the news

Back in November we held a Hip Hop and Rap online workshop with a very special guest in attendance – Scottish legend Karen Dunbar. We were thrilled to find out what a great experience she had on the course, and fascinated to discover about the new community Hip Hop workshops she’s been hosting online since the first lockdown. So we boldly asked her for an interview! 

We chatted in depth about her Hip Hop workshops, which are currently mostly being held online via Zoom. Although it’s been an idea and a passion of hers for a while – the spread the power and positivity and Hip Hop and its empowering spoken word aspect – it was the conditions of lockdown which made it happen. Karen has been working with different community groups, from refugees to venerable young people, to a community theatre group, helping them to devise and create meaningful and personal rap stanzas. She even hopes to one day get their tracks played on the radio, and host a concert to showcase their work.

It was also a chance for us to catch up with Karen about how her lockdown(s) have been. 2020 was a trying year, not least of all for actors and comedians, with gigs and shows ripped from under them. But Karen is admirably optimistic, throwing herself into her new project and happy to face all the changes in our world with a headstrong, grin-and-bear-it attitude. She’s also stopped watching the news, which helps…


So why hip-hop then Karen? How did you get into that?

I love hip-hop! I’ve always loved it. It’s not as if I’ve been a huge hip-hop effiiardo for decades so I’m not gonna claim that, but I’ve always enjoyed rap music and been intrigued by it – the history, the culture. I was into a wee bit of Scottish rap music but the last couple of months it’s really took off for me. Just enjoying listening to it, discovering.  And it’s because rap is essentially spoken word – it’s performance spoken word – and I’m an actor so that’s a big part of what I do!

[It] just kinda exploded! To almost an unmanageable point, which is just lovely in some ways but it’s a bit hectic. I’m working on a track now actually. But I am really enjoying it, really enjoying it.

Has music always been an interest?

There was a social club round the corner from where I grew up, and my big sister and my dad used to take me round, and I’d go up on stage and sing sometimes – I must have been about 4 year old. I mean this was in the mid 70s so you were allowed to take 4 year olds into a big pub and let them sing at the time! Full of smoke and everything. And you know I’ve got two sisters, and my mum and dad, and their influences – they’ve very different influences you know! One of them was prog rock – one of my sisters – the other was Motown, my mum and dad were much older so they were the classic references… 

I always had a kind of musical ear. I don’t play any instruments – apart from the mouth organ and I only play ‘Oh Suzanne’ on the mouth organ! But when I was in primary, I was able to pick at tunes on a keyboard or on a xylophone – so if someone said ‘doe a deer’ I could play it. And I thought everybody could do that! A bit like seeing and hearing you know, that everybody could jus’ do that, but it wasnae until years later that I was like, oh that’s a thing not everybody has… So aye, music obsessed, obsessed!

There’s an old 70s song called ‘Music..’ by John… I can’t remember who sings it, there you go! John somebody! Anyway, he says, the first line has a big dramatic, big piano behind it, and he sings ‘music is my first love and it will be last‘ – and it always makes me laugh, because it’s true, it’s true for me.

 

What do the workshops involve?

Well, I’m saying they’re basic right now but it feels like there’s an awful lot in them! [laughs] I’ve been doing most of them on Zoom. They’re 2 hour sessions which are great, people are really enthusiastic, and they’re up for it, and they’re open minded, and they’re creative! The idea is to get a group of people, maybe 6 or 8, and give them a topic and ask them to write a short paragraph up about that topic and then to take each of their paragraphs and help them write it up into a rap stanza. Then, help them develop that and help them rap it and perform it – you know, [it’s] on Zoom, but we’re doing it!

I’ve been recording them and then taking the recordings. I’m doing some of them acapella, sometimes I give them a beat behind it, but obviously with Zoom it’s very limited. Then I’ll go and make the music up for the track on GarageBand, and edit their voices into the song. So I’ve just finished one about 15 minutes ago! I think I’m finished – I’m no sure! I might go back and faff about with it for another 5 hours! [laughs] But I’m hopefully finished with it. I’m really having a ball with it.

“There’s a strange mix of resignation and gratitude.
We’ve gotta do it like this, but at least we can.”


What has the response been like to the workshops?

Well, it’s so strange how it came about and, I’m not too arty farty or airy fairy [laughs] but it just seemed to happen and it just seemed to flow very easily, and usually that’s a good sign!  I’ve done 5 workshops with 5 different groups over 3 week periods for each of them, I’ve got another 3 to do, and that’s intentional that I don’t have any more to do at the moment, because I could’nae handle any! [laughs] 

When I started off, one of my friends – he’s a business advisor but a pal you know, I was talking to him about it, and he says, ‘so what are you charging for it?’ I’m nae charging anything for it! And he said you gotta charge something! I say – you know, typical artist – I don’t want tae make money, I want tae make music! And I meant that, I really meant it. That does’nae mean I don’t need to pay my rent and things… But I don’t want to attach money to this because it starts to sully things. SO, all that being said it gave me a really good place to come from, because the inference wasnae, ‘oh let’s see how much I can get financially out of this’. It was more, ‘lets see what we can do together.’  I think that’s been helpful in creating a useful atmosphere for it. 


Who can get involved?

I had a group of refugees who live in Glasgow, that was my first group – fantastic! I was overwhelmed with enthusiasm and creativity, just brilliant. Then I was out at the Good Shepherd Centre out in Bishopton with some teens – and I was out there because they could still operate because it was a closed school environment. Again overwhelming, just wasnae expecting what I got from them at all. I thought it would be good but I didn’t realise it would be so moving! 

I’ve just a couple of groups with the Citizens Theatre, they have a thing called the Community Collective, and that’s one of the songs I’m working on just now. That was so different as well! They’ve all been so different and I think that’s what’s making me so excited about it and quite purposeful, because every-single session is different, with a different mix of people and different backgrounds. And I think In fact, 4 of them – or 3 different groups – have asked me to come back and do it again, which is great because I’ve only just finished! So that’s heartening as well. And then another 3 groups coming up in the next month.

It’s just these groups that have come to me at the moment – and I haven’t even advertised it! I haven’t put it out anywhere, I’m just testing the ground right now – but the ground seems pretty fertile!

Are attendees new to hip-hop or do they have an interest already?

Yep, some of the students out at the Good Shepherd were fantastic MCs! I’m learning all the time… I didn’t know the difference between an MC and a rapper.. So they were educating me on that! But mostly, I mean the group I was working with yesterday I would say they were at the ages of 40 upwards, a couple of them in their 60s, which is brilliant! Each individual in that group, their attitudes to rap, what they liked and what they didnae like, and what they thought could be done – that’s so interesting as well. 

Each group at the end has come out of it with a formed, structured rap song. I think that’s surprising to a few of the participants, I didnae see how this could work and yet here it is and it’s brilliant and it flows! And I’m LOVING that! I’m actually In love with it now! I’ve got all the chemicals of being in love, I’m off my face on dopamine! It’s all fleeing through me – adrenaline – I cannae wait to get back into it!


And the tracks they create – will they be available for people to listen to?

I’ve been talking to Steg G at Sunny G Radio, who’s one of your tutors, I said to him, what I’d like to do is, I’ve not had the chance to do it yet (you know, Zoom novice) but what I’d like to do is get the recordings together, and mix them as best I can. I’ve actually signed up to your sound engineering course, because I don’t really know what I’m doing with it. I just recently got back into Garageband, so I’m just learning that now. The quality of them is pretty dubious right now but what I’d like to do, and Steg has agreed, is make individual shows for each group and put them on Sunny G. Along with different music as well, but play that and play interviews with the group. 

Essentially what I’d like to do is make an album of it and put it out. Then if the world ever opens back up do a concert at the Royal Concert Hall with each group – I would love that! But if its never anything more than what it is now, it’s fantastic. And I mean that, because if I keep it within that realm, I don’t project too much and I don’t try to force things like; ‘we need to do this better, because I want it to be recorded and who knows who might be listening…’ Pardon the expression – but f* all that! I just want the experience of being in the room – or being on Zoom – with participants. Anything else is a bonus. 

Do you know much about the Scottish Hip Hop scene? 

Nooo, this time 3 months ago all I knew was Stanley Odd and Loki! I didn’t even know Steg G did hip-hop. So there’s my ignorance level on it, but I’m getting more familiar with it now. 

I’m also watching the Rap Game, which I had actually watched last year, without any thoughts on watching it because I was doing a workshop, and I don’t really watch a lot of reality show type competitions, but I was really interested in that, and I watched Hip Hop Evolution when it came out. So I’m watching Shogun on the Rap Game right now, and I’m very interested in his stuff. So aye, getting into it more – and I’m intrigued! 

 

Some people have a negative perception of hip-hop – how it sometimes is sexist, homophonic or violent. It’s good that it’s being seen more as a positive tool for learning and expression. Because as you said, it’s spoken word and poetry! 

Yeah, most things when they become so commercial turn… You know the two main sources of power are sex and money. And if you look at anything really, well most things, you’ll see that element when it gets to a certain degree. And as you said there, that’s now how it started off and that’s not what it needs to be. There’s other channels of hip hop as well – or there’s other ways to channel it. 

“Each group has come out of it with a formed, structured rap song. I think that’s surprising to a few of the participants. I didnae see how this could work and yet here it is, and it’s brilliant and it flows!”


What about 2020, how has it gone for you? I saw you were set to play Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Ernest in Perth in March, did that go ahead?

We did yeah! We got so far into it. It was only a 3 week run, so we got 2 weeks out of the 3 weeks in the end. I’m really glad we got that but that was disappointing because I felt it was a huge role… One of the hardest in terms of muscularity– the vocal muscularity! The annunciation, the breath work I had to do, never mind any emotional stuff I had to do! You know so much of it was technique. And that sounds like I know what I’m doing – I’m not trained in anything, my training has kinda been on the job, so I made it up as I went along, and that… I felt I was just getting into the part and we lost the last week! 

So yeah, that was disappointing. It was a lovely wee theatre in Perth, a great director, fantastic cast, the set, what they’d done, because it was a very low budget, and what they’d done with the set and the costumes, it was such a good job that we all pulled together, and we only had 3 weeks rehearsal! There were 5 cast members and the 4 were all playing other roles! So it was a huge undertaking. So aye, it was disappointing, it would be lovely if that was remounted, but god knows where and how and when now! 

How was lockdown?  Was the workshop something that came from lockdown or had you thought about it before?

Well, to answer the hip-hop question; a bit of both. I’d spoken a bit at the beginning of the year [2020] to a friend, it might have been even at the end of last year [2019]… Before I even knew what COVID-19 was! So it wisnae a thing that I wanted to do because of lockdown, but I had nae time! I had been wanting to do something like that for a long time and was just too busy… So yeah it did come from the lockdown in terms of how I could do it, because obviously I couldn’t have go into rooms with people, so the majority of it’s been done on Zoom, which I very hesitant to do, but if it was between that and nothing, then I was doing that, and actually that [is] working out. 

I’m a Zoom novice but I seem to be getting better at it every 2 hour session! It’s just practice like anything. But I’m limited to what I can actually do, because if I was in the actual room with people I would be sitting working with them you know, you can get the energy of people as well, especially when it’s creative and it’s musical and it’s rhythmic and you’re picking that up off people… But we’re nae doing a bad job on it, and I think [the participants] are – I cannae speak for everybody– but I think there’s a strange mix of resignation and gratitude. We’ve gotta do it like this, but at least we can. 

It’s strange to say this, I try to be very mindful of the suffering that’s happening… I’ve had my own stuff to deal with and that as well, it’s not as if it’s not touched me – ‘cos all my work was cancelled, and that’s a big thing! There’s nae furlough for me! There’s naebody paying me anything! But I hardly did anything. I couldn’t see anybody, but at the same time there was an awful lot less money spent. It was readdressing a balance personally for me in how I spent money, how I spent time – because that busyness! You know it’s funny, there’s kind of a perpetual motion that’s going on and then, coming into lockdown, was left panting! Almost like… [she mimics breathing fast]… 


Left catching our breath!

Yeah. There’s some part of my brain mechanism that’s still running and looking to attach to the busyness, the level of energy it was used to. And that eventually ran out you know, with enough episodes of the Gilmore Girls [laughs] – that ran out! It was quite scary because I’m used to being very busy….. And then I went into the inertia period of, what the f*ck am I doing… What can I do? What do I want to do? What do I need to do? So all those questions on a small level.. and on a – micro and macro, because those sort of existential, ‘who am i, what is this’… 

I hav’nae watched the news or read a newspaper for 20 years. Now in saying that, I was still on Twitter quite a lot – funny I came off Twitter a couple of years ago, and then I reinstalled [it]… I wasnae tweeting anything but I was reading you know so much, so I was infused completely with all sides of everything! Then the arse fell out of that.. I know I jus’ thought I cannae look at this anymore, so a couple of months ago jus’ deleted Twitter again. So I don’t have any news that I look at. My mates keep me posted on what I need to know. And that’s been really, really conducive to my creativity. I cannae stress that enough!


We’re aching for the arts industry right now! What advice would give those still interested in pursuing a career in the arts?

Well this might sound a bit strange – and I hope it does’nae come across as patronising in any way – but do not worry about it. Not because, in that kind of ‘everything’s gonna be alright’ way, but we must create, as the creatures we are ya know. I don’t mean us as artists, I mean the species – we must create. So whatever that creativity is inside each person, whether it’s about creating a good soup, creating a wee baby, creating music – we’re driven to do it. 

There’s a surface level to me that’s like ‘oh my god, the theatre is shut, live events are shut, the bulk of my work is in that, what’s gonna happen’.. One of the ways that I’m able to calm down is to come back to what my needs are. And I’ve got a kind of mantra of, ok what are my needs? Food, water, air, shelter, love – sleep potentially! But even if I don’t get that I’ll probably still live for quite a bit. Food, water, air, shelter, love – that’s what I need. And I’ve never been without that! So I know that’s maybe no advice to an artist because I don’t really know how to give it other than; Don’t worry, we will find a way to create – we cannae not!

If we’re gonna live online then we will create online and that will take off… It’s already taken off but that will take off more – and I know that’s not the same and I know there’s a huge loss in that but.. There’s an old bumper sticker that says ‘change = loss + gain’ so there’s gotta be gain in it too.

 

It’s human nature isn’t it, to create?

And when I’m questioning and doubting everything myself creatively, that’s why for a few months of lockdown, my go-to place would’ve been – write a monologue, write something that you can do online – but I just was’nae there, there was a huge block! And I know a lot of creative people had that, but it was nurturing that belief, which is a core belief that as a species we’ve got to create, you know. This isn’t just about me being a suffering artist or something, that’s what we do as humans. Knowing that that was true, and thinking – ok leave it alone and it will come. And when it did it was a bit tsunami-like! It was like – ‘I’m going to do hip-hop! That’s it!!! HIP-HOP!’ So, it’ll come. And I think stressing about it can create a barrier to it. Sometimes it’s good to have a wee bit of stress to give us some umph, but there’s levels to it.

How are you feeling about the current lockdown?

I mean it’s a terrible thing that we’ve got to go into any level of it again. I feel so lucky, so lucky to be doing what I’m doing right now. I feel… it’s unfair to say this but to a certain degree I’m not really thinking about the lockdown too much. I’m waking up in the morning right now and thinking I’ve gotta find a baseline for that hip hop track! And I’ve gotta find a way to splice that.. And put a beat into this and I cannae mix yet, so I’m gonna Google that and watch a tutorial [laughs]! That’s what I’m thinking about just now. 


Are you feeling more positive for 2021?


Next year? Nae idea! Don’t know, don’t care! Because it’s too far, it’s too far. Tomorrow’s a wee bit too far for me. What I manage is what’s happening right now. And that’s.. I was going to say a coping mechanism, but it’s not, it’s a dealing with life mechanism. An awful lot of the time –not in any kind of bhuddist-zen-medative kind of way– but I actually try to check in with my body; ‘Are ye in any pain?!’ Are ya hungry? Tired? Thirsty?’ Because this is reality what is happening here and now. And everything else, past or future, it’s all in my head! And that sort of brings me back into the room if you like. Which is good, that’s been a really useful tool over the years. Never mind tomorrow, never mind yesterday, what’s happening in the now.

And it’s not easy because we live in a society that’s so led towards we must try harder, better, higher, faster… bikini-body ready, blah blah… Oh man, we’re so immersed in it, just to come out of it for a while and think I’m gonna try this GarageBand loop, because my ears can hear it and that’s reality… 

There’s me saying I don’t think about 2021! I am looking to expand [the workshops] next year, so if you know any groups that would be interested in that, then please put that out there. But we’ll see, we’ll see what happens today! 


Read more about Karen on her website.

Check out more news and blogs from us here.

 

Words & Interview: Isobel Trott


Many Hats with Chloe Heatlie, producer at Adelphoi Music

Many Hats with Chloe Heatlie, producer at Adelphoi Music

Welcome back to Many Hats. This week our Edinburgh centre manager Alyssa got to sit down and catch up with her old pal Chloe Heatlie, producer at Adelphoi Music, a Music Agency based in Central London. Chloe has a set of impressive music qualifications including a Masters in Musical Theatre at the Royal Academy of Music and since joining Adelphoi, she has worked with a range of high profile clients including Nike, Armani x Hypebeast, Zara, Walkers Max, and Google Cloud.

Their conversation spans all things music production, as Alyssa gets all the details on what Chloe’s fascinating role involves, and her commitment to music beyond her day-job including her lockdown-inspired Podcast ‘A Little More Conversation’. Alyssa and Chloe also chat lockdown tips and the impact of this ‘toxic productivity’ we’re all feeling just a little bit right now. Read on and discover all…


Hi Chloe! Tell me a bit about yourself! What do you do and how did you get where you are today?

I live in London and I work as a producer at a music agency [Adelphoi Music].  Before that, I studied musical theatre in Glasgow at Motherwell College and then moved to London to study at the Royal Academy of Music. After that I worked as a performer before I decided I wanted to work in the music industry. When I decided that, I started to work hard to gain experience, so temped on reception at places like Universal Music, I volunteered for Sofar Sounds, read a ton of books, wrote a music blog and eventually (after a couple of years) I got a job at Adelphoi. And that’s where I am now!

 

Tell us a bit more about your role at Adelphoi?

I’m a producer – we work with creative agencies, production companies and brands to either find or create music and/or sounds for advertising campaigns. We have a team of composers who work for us but we also work with freelance composers, musicians and artists to create compositions! We work with record labels and publishers to brief out searches if we’re looking for a specific type of track for a project, we’ll work with them to find tracks that are in-line with what we want and are licence-able for the budget we have.

We also do audio branding, so that’s working directly with brands to find a specific sound to represent them. For example we worked with Norwegian Air to create a sonic identity for them and they use it on board all of their planes, we also revived Gillette’s existing audio identity for use globally across their advertising. We also do sound design to picture too.


What’s a typical day in the office for you? – Pre-covid!

A typical day pre-COVID! [laughs] Our office is in Covent Garden, there we have studios and we have a production room where we all sit and work together. We usually have production meetings, so all the producers get together and we talk about projects we have. We also talk about sales a lot, part of our role is new business. So we’re reaching out to producers, creatives and creative directors, to tell them about the company and try to get them to think of us when they next need music on a project.  We have sales catch-ups in the morning, then during the day we’ll just be working on whatever projects take priority. A lot of the time our projects are a very quick turn around, 1-2 days to make a composition for an advert, so that’s doing demos, working on them and then delivering, so getting them mixed as well! [We’re] sometimes in-and-out of the office for industry events too.

 

And how have things changed with COVID this year?

It’s quite different yeah… So all of the ‘nice’ bits of the job – getting to meet people and socialise and attend events and screenings – are all non-existent! [laughs] There are a lot of online events which we are trying to attend more and more. But yeah the sad thing is not being able to meet people and chat face-to-face and do all those things which are the big perks of the job really! But yeah we’ve been working remotely since March, everybody, all our composers and producers.


Has your job been effected by the impact of COVID on the music industry?

We’ve noticed [it] in terms of the types of projects that we’re getting. We’re getting a lot smaller budgets this year, so brands just don’t have as much money, or they’re choosing not to spend as much money on music so we’re getting a lot of back catalog searches and library music searches. Rather than brands spending £50k on a composition job, they’ll spend £10k on a piece of library music that maybe isn’t as special but is cheaper and does the job. So we’ve definitely noticed some budgets being slashed, but there’s definitely still work out there so we’re still working which is nice!

 

That’s good – it’s a bit doom and gloom and we’re having to adapt! But musicians are used to being versatile?

I think that’s true. Most people I work with have some kind of ‘side hustle’ whether that is DJing or being part of some sort of collaborative group, or volunteering, they do have things they do on the side. Definitely agree.

 

When you graduated from RAM, how did your degree help you to get where you are today?

My degrees did help me in terms of the musical knowledge you need to get my job. Everyone that works for the company is a musician or a DJ or is totally involved in music in some way, shape or form. So it’s really important. And also to be able to give feedback to performers, if you don’t understand music you’re not really able to give that feedback. It’s something that adds value to companies like us. You get agencies coming to us and saying things like… ‘I want music that’s happy’. Okay, what kind of music are we talking about here? So it needs to be happy, is that all you can give us? [laughs] So it’s kinda like translating what people want into music – which is essential. 

“For my job I have to have an understanding of a range of genres. Our briefs can be anything from opera to 80s disco! It could be anything.”

I also think, with my degree in musical theatre… It wasn’t all about the music, it was more about your confidence and your character.  I think it was those things that really helped me in terms of getting up and being able to talk to people or being able to approach somebody you don’t know and say, hey look at what we’re doing over here, do you wanna hear more about it? It’s also those skills that are really valuable!

 

So from graduating from RAM to where you are today, what experience did you gather along the way?

I had to have passion for music to get my job, you had to have experience in music. You have to have an understanding of a range of genres – our briefs can be anything from opera to 80s disco, you know! It could be anything. So you have to kinda understand a lot of different styles, or at least have an awareness of it. 

I was also doing loads of voluntary work at the time too.  In those 2 years where I was looking for a job in music, I was applying for jobs like mad! There’s paid internships down in London but they don’t really pay you enough for you to actually do them, unless you’re living with someone and not really paying any rent or student loans or bills. I didn’t do an internship, I just needed to get a job! And I think Adelphoi did take a bit of a risk.

I think it’s important to note I didn’t have experience in the job, I just had passion and I had degrees and I had knowledge. I was teaching myself, I read so many books all about the music industry and I was volunteering at live events, doing all sorts of things from artist liaison to making sure people at the events were safe and comfortable. And I was blogging as well!  I was constantly looking online to find artists that weren’t signed and I was blogging about them, just writing ‘check out this song, this is really cool, and she’s from here, and she’s this old, and this is the kind of music she does or he does.’ So yeah, a big part of me getting the job was the company taking a chance, but also proving I was passionate.

What about the best thing about working in music?

The best thing I think is the people. We get to meet so many people, not only is our team so nice, we have a good family feel! But there’s just so many interesting people. As I said before, aside from the day-to-day projects we might be working on, you might not be really passionate about making an advert, or what the advert is about, but a lot of the people have things that they believe in and they’re part of things outside of work they get involved in. That might be charity projects… The other night we went to an online… What do you call it when it’s like naked drawing? [laughs]

Anyway! It was an online naked drawing [life drawing] event for Breast Cancer Awareness and these girls from an agency were like, we’re gonna do an event with naked drawing and you pay £8 for a ticket, all the money goes towards Breast Cancer Awareness and you have a bit of fun! And there’s loads of those sort of initiatives which I really like. So definitely the people. 

 

What’s the most challenging aspect of your job or working in the industry?

One of the challenges actually is getting through all the music! So everyday we each get 10s and 10s of emails from sync companies, publishers, record labels, freelance composers and artists – we just get sent so much music! And we’d love to listen to it, and we do try to go through as much as we can but we can’t sit and listen to music all day, so that’s the sad thing, we get a sent a lot of great stuff that we might miss because we just don’t have the hours in the day. But we do always try to reply, especially if it’s someone new that we haven’t heard from before just to say thanks, I’ll take a look, and we’ll keep you in mind and if something comes up maybe we can work together. But yeah, that’s the day-to-day trouble for sure.

 

What advice would you give students or graduates who want to get into your line of work?

Yeah, passion! If you’re not, why are you in the music industry really! That’s a given. But for this year obviously it’s really challenging for everyone in terms of working, there’s been a ton of redundancies all over the place especially in the live sector, I think just don’t be too hard on yourself if it doesn’t happen straight away. It took me a few years to get a job in music, and I think just do your research! 

If you’re passionate about something, just learn. Watch YouTube videos, read books, email people, add them on LinkedIn, just say hey, I’m really interested in your career, would you be up for having a coffee or a zoom and just chatting. Maybe find a mentor as well, somebody that’s willing to give you advice or check over your CV. But I think passion will definitely help you on the way!

 

And what’s the most valuable piece of advice you’ve received? 

I think for me I’ve always been quite driven to the point where I just want to get things done and get to the finish line. It can be a really good thing, but it’s important to take your time sometimes and enjoy the moments… And not always be pushing for the next thing. Just taking it a bit slower sometimes would probably be the best advice I’ve had. Not that I always listen to it! [laughs]

Especially during the pandemic…

There was that saying which was like, if you’ve got out of bed in the morning and made your bed, then you’ve done something, you’ve achieved something.

 

That’s a good way to look at it. There’s so much pressure on achieving stuff during this time – I’m not in the mood to do anything creative, just trying to get through it.

I think it’s totally common. Obviously everybody is different and everybody is dealing with it differently and has different situations, but I don’t think it’s a time to be putting pressure on yourself and stressing out about it. You know, do what you can do. If you can make 10 albums this year then go for it – it doesn’t really matter, but just make sure when you come out of it you’re in a good place. 

 

That takes me to my next question… You’re working on a podcast that covers mental health in the industry, is that right?

Yeah sure, so the podcast is called ‘A Little More Conversation‘ and it basically came up during coronavirus. Me and a colleague Lacyn were thinking how hard all this was, and we bet there’s other people out there who are really struggling, but there’s actually nothing for people – in advertising especially – to turn to. There’s a charity that provides counselling but that’s all really. So we decided to start a podcast that talks about mental health in the advertising industry. It’s been really popular so far. We’re going to talk about things like the pressures of sales, the pressures of creativity, job sharing, working from home, returning to work after paternity or maternity leave, things like that. Anything that might be presenting challenges for people in the industry and openly talking about it. It will hopefully give people in the industry somewhere to go and listen to other people’s problems, which they can probably relate to!

It’s good to feel you’re not alone in the way you’re feeling. A lot of what we’re seeing is the highlights of people’s lives on social media.

Yeah it’s true – it’s not real what you see on social media – but it’s the same in the industry, you might have a company saying ‘we’re really busy, we have so many projects on..’ but they don’t! They’re just saying it because they want people to think that they’re busy, which is their prerogative really. But actually I think this year especially it’s fine to say, we’ve had a hard year, you’ve probably too, is there anything we can do to help each other out?

How would a budding artist go about approaching you to get their tracks featured in one of your projects?

So there’s a couple of ways. If you have a publisher, the publisher should be pushing out your music to people like us, not just for advertising but for film and TV as well. But not everybody has a publisher, so if you’re doing it yourself, just research companies – companies like us, music production companies. You’ll also find on LinkedIn lots of freelance music supervisors. They want to be sent music, you know, we want to be sent stuff, we need to know what’s current, what’s cool.  And also if you’re an artist, there’s some really interesting reasons for a company to work with you, one it’s supporting up-and-coming talent, which is huge, hugely important. And 2, it’ll give you good money for you to go and make more music! 

Also it often works well for lower budget projects, or projects that are maybe more creative. So I think there’s definitely good opportunities. Our emails are on the website, just go around, do some research, send some emails. Make sure that when you present your music you do it in a good way. So don’t send too much, maybe send a couple of tracks and just explain who you are and what kind of music you’re making – and that’s it!

 

And one last question – what’s the most exciting project you’ve been involved in at work?

Oooo… I’m actually working on one at the minute, I actually can’t tell you what who brand is, it’s a luxury fashion brand, but we’re basically mixing an old out-of-copyright classical piece of music with very modern, ugly sounds, an so it’s going to be a total mash up of beautiful classical music and really ugly, industrial sounds! And the film is really cool, it’s got loads of dancers in it and the people are beautiful and hopefully it’s going to come together in the end!


Sounds interesting!

Yeah it’s bold definitely! I’ll send it ya!


You can read Chloe’s blog here, and listen to her podcast A Little More Conversation on Spotify.

Find out more about Adelphoi on their website

~

Interview: Alyssa Renwick
Photos: © Adelphoi Music


women in music short course free scotland female artists kate mccabe

Meet 9 incredible Scottish artists from the AMS Women In Music course

Our latest Women In Music (Empowerment and Employability) short course took place online a couple of weeks ago, and was a roaring success. The free online event saw a huge number of passionate female artists and women in music, come together, network and share their knowledge.

Hosted by our own Karlyn King and Melisa Kelly, the event saw female-identifying artists currently based in Scotland come together to share knowledge and skills in a welcoming and inclusive environment.  Some of our wonderful attendees have been kind enough to share with us some of their work and music. Take a look below for a short bio on each artist, and links to some of their music.

Our next WIM event will take place over 2 weekends from 21 November to 29 November – oh, and it’s completely free! Follow the link to book your place now.


Kate McCabe

Kate McCabe is a 23 year old singer songwriter from, and based in Scotland. She’s been writing songs since she was 10 and in 2014 released her debut E.P ‘Fault’ at 15 years old. Most recently in 2018 she released she second E.P ‘WOMAN’. Kate said that music has always been her passion and she hope that her work will “emotionally engage people with melodies and lyrics not only make you stop and listen, but make you stop and think”. Check out her music on her Bandcamp artist page and get updates on her music on her Facebook.


Jeri Foreman

Jeri is a big name in Australian folk music – now residing in Scotland! A fiddle player from Adelaide (South Australia), Jeri’s debut in the Australian folk scene was winning back-to-back Young Traditionalist’s Awards at the Victor Harbour Folk Festival, age 11 and 12. Sh’e won plenty of awards since then, including Most Outstanding New or Emerging Artist/Group in the Folk Federation of SA Folk Awards in 2007 and 2008, and in 2009, her performances with Adelaide band, Garida, won the inaugural Peter Daly Award for the finest performance of Celtic music at the National Folk Festival.

She’s also gone onto being awarded music scholarships 2010 to study with many of the world’s top fiddle players, and in 2014, she won the Best Composition Golden Fiddle Award for her tune, “No Bigger Than an Envelope”.  She is a multifaceted fiddler, fascinated by finding similarities in fiddle traditions. Jeri holds a Bachelor of Music with Honours (majoring in violin performance) from the Elder Conservatorium. She has released two albums of compositions in the Celtic style, in 2013 and 2017. She continues to play with a variety of musicians in multiple genres. Check out her LP The Blue Album on Spotify now.


Amy Ross (Baby Taylah)

Scotland based Amy Ross (artist name Baby Taylah) is know for her fusion of dark electronica with distorted, breathy vocals, which flicker relentlessly between angelic and ominous tones.

“Combining dark electro pop with a classic Celtic sound, Baby Taylah’s music is fuelled by a sense of empowerment. Born Amy Louise Ross, the 27-year-old singer-songwriter had been active in the Glasgow music scene since the late aughts before she decided to take a three-year break from songwriting. More confident than ever, she returned late last year having signed to Swedish label Icons Creating Evil Art with a bold new single called ‘Reclaim’, a track whose power lies in its minimal yet effective production, presenting Taylah as a force to be reckoned with. There’s a lot to be excited about in Baby Taylah’s future, and we can’t wait to hear more….”

Listen to Baby Taylah on Spotify now.

Alison McNeill 

Alison is 1/3 of Reely Jiggered – “a Scottish folk rock band with a twist”, who’s recent album Tricky Terrain is cone to check out. Alison has performed as a soloist all over the UK, Holland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Japan, Pakistan, America and Mexico and has been broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio nan Gaidheal and Spanish, Pakistani and Mexican TV.

As a freelance portfolio musician, Alison enjoys a busy and varied career as a Classical lyric soprano performing as a soloist in top venues including Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Minami Aizu Concert Hall (Japan) and the National Auditorium of Galicia (Spain). As gifted recitalist, Alison formed the McNeill Savaloni Duo with Classical guitarist Sasha Savaloni which has seen the pair broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland’s Classics Unwrapped and become the 2015-2017 Artists in Residence for Enterprise Music Scotland‘s Chamber Music Project.

Ellie Morrison

Ellie is an Artist Manager and Musician. After receiving a first class honours degree in music business at SAE Institute, I decided to set up my own artist management company called Ellie Morrison Artist Management. Since then, she has been working with singer/songwriter Megan Black for around a year, in which time they have released two singles and organised a series of independent events and gigs.

“Not every day is the same,” she said in an interview with SAE. “Most of the time I am updating her social media, depending on what event is coming up next, and then making sure everything is organised for whatever we are working on at the time. Right now we are working on an EP, so over the next few weeks I will be making sure the songs are finalised, uploading them to a distribution company, creating an EPK (Electronic Press Kit), which includes the tracks, music videos, promotional photographs and press release statement, which I will then send out to different press outlets.”

Get updates on her Facebook page.


Sonia Duignan

Based in Scotland, Sonia D is an Irish singer-songwriter whose fingerstyle picking and melodies take their influence from Folk and Indie Folk music. Sonia’s acoustic based music contains thought provoking lyrics and emotive vocals intertwined with hints of piano and strings. With her haunting tones and honest expression she sings about her life experiences and hopes that her music resonates as a form of escapism or therapy to any who listen.

Growing up in Galway, Sonia started writing songs at the age of 10 immersed in the influence of artists such as Nina Simone, Pete Yorn, Fiona Apple, Glen Hansard, Jeff Buckley, Heather Nova and Chantal Kreviazuk. Today’s influences number the likes of James Vincent McMorrow, Wallis Bird, Dodie, and Dermot Kennedy, whose music has inspired her to be brave in baring her soul through her art form. Sonia loves live streams and plans to gig both locally and abroad. Currently focused on releasing singles, an E.P. and an Album are also in the pipeline.

Jen Athan

Jen Athan is a songwriter, composer, producer and multi- instrumentalist from Aberdeen.  She found her passion for music after learning to play the violin, piano, guitar and drums throughout her youth. Whilst studying music at North East Scotland College, she found herself becoming more involved in music production and sound design and decided to pursue a career in writing and producing music.

In 2018, Jen released her solo piano EP Vinter Allée with one of the pieces ‘For Sebastien’ featuring in the sold-out performance of Kid Astronaut –  an early years theatre show which she also co-wrote. She has worked with Scottish Youth Theatre, Tron Theatre Young Company, Ipdip theatre, Glasgow Life and BBC The Social.

Listen & learn more on her website.

Emma Milligan

Emma is 22 year old singer songwriter based in Edinburgh. On her artist page, she says her influences are the likes of artists such as Fleetwood Mac, and Ed Sheeran. She plays guitar and ukulele. Find out more about Emma on her Artist Facebook Page.

Emmy Leishman

Otherwise known as Big Girl’s Blouse, Emmy Leishman is a Glasgow based artist. Listen to her radiant music on Soundcloud now.


november playlist

Brighten your day with our November playlist

Take your mind off the impending lockdown, and give your ears a well deserved treat with our carefully curated November playlist.

It's been another superb month for releases in Scotland, and our Glasgow team have put together a compilation of tracks that does mighty justice to the incredible local scene at the moment.

A playlist diverse as always, check out notable releases from Taz And The Maniacs, Tommy McGuire, Paul Mullen Music, Rigid Soul, Chris Greig & The Merchants, Lucia & The Best Boys, Ceiti and Quiche.


susan montgomery resonate confernece many hats interview glasgow scotland

Many Hats with Resonate's Susan Montgomery

For the next instalment of Many Hats we sit down with Susan Montgomery, Project Manager at Glasgow’s annual Resonate Music Conference, and Senior Music Publicist at Publishing Company 23 Precinct.

Susan has been working on producing Resonate for 4 years now which usually happens in Glasgow each year. This year, like everyone, Susan and her team are having to adapt to the strange new conditions we find ourselves in, so this year, Resonate 2020 will be taking place virtually in November. Susan talks us through her experience – from starting a biochemistry degree to following her passion for music by going back to college to study music, and subsequently kick-starting the impressive career she holds today! See below for wise words, hot tips and some impressive anecdotes…


What are your current roles? What do they involve?

Right now I work as the Senior Music Publisher at 23rd Precinct Music, which is first and foremost a publishing company, so we represent songwriters, composers and music creators, and we also have 2 in-house record labels – so I wear many hats in that role!

I also Project-Manage Resonate which is a music industry conference, which normally happens physically, but this year it’s happening digitally. It happens in November every year in Glasgow, and we host a series of panel discussions, one to one sessions, workshops, seminars – a whole bunch of things! We’ve really worked to grow that over the past 4/3 years to be a sort of calendar – staple – event in a lot of Scottish music-people’s lives I think now, and that’s really where we’re at!

 

Amazing! What key skills do you use in each role?

At 23rd Prescient as a Publisher I have to be great at communicating. I have to be really forthcoming with ideas, pitching to labels and management companies. So if I’ve got a writer that writes a song I have to find a home for that song, so I directly pitch to management companies, not just here in the UK, but all over the world. 

I do a lot of pitching for Sync as well – Sync is when you put music to a moving image, so that could be a game or trailer, advert, whatever else. Basically I organise all the catalogs, all the new music that our writers are writing. I have to then process it on a platform – so being organised is a really important skill. Being able to self-motivate is really important and being able to prioritise your tasks. You know, if I get a briefing for a Sync and it’s urgent I have to drop everything I’m doing and respond to that. 

And in terms of Resonate, I think being a good team leader – hopefully I am a good team leader I don’t know, I’ve not had any bad feedback so far! [laughs] – but being able to manage and delegate tasks is really hard, especially if you’re a control-freak, but it’s just about overcoming those challenges that you face with just growing up I guess!

What’s the most rewarding aspect of your job/s? 

From a publishing perspective, that’s really where my passion lies.  I really love songwriting and just think it’s such a magical thing. Seeing someone get a track picked up by a big label, or maybe I’m working with a vocalist who’s just produced an acapella and I get a producer to bring that track to life, I love that. And if you manage to sign it to a big label, or it doesn’t even have to be a ‘big’ label, but just the feeling of accomplishment, and knowing that you’ve helped that writer or vocalist [is great]. 

We’ve work on a long term basis, so when we sign people we sign them for at least 18 months, maybe 2 years, so it’s really rewarding seeing those writers progress and develop and grow in confidence. Being able to say, “I’m going to go into this session, and I’m going to smash this” or “I’m not going to feel overwhelmed in a studio with people with 20 years experience” – I think we can all suffer from that anxiety sometimes– so that’s definitely one of the most rewarding parts. 

And on the conference side, the rewards are just seeing people learn and talk to each other. I think a lot can be said for people communicating and networking, there’s no better feeling! Making friends… Remember when we used to go out and meet friends! [laughs] I think on an employment level, it really is just seeing people develop and grow – that’s really rewarding. 

 

What experience did you need for the role/s you’re currently in?

Well I started out studying Biochemistry – I dropped out of that because I realised I didn’t want to be a scientist and really I just went to college – that can seem like a bit of a step back sometimes, or society has a dim view if you change your mind or your career… But I went back to college, and my lecturer was actually signed to the company that I work for now, so basically it came to fruition that he suggested me for an opening at the company. So in that sense going into higher education did benefit me.

Was it a music course?

Yeah yeah, a HND in Music Business!  I went from cutting up rats at uni to learning about something I had always been really, really passionate about [laughs] – but maybe skeptical, about a career there. And I think this series will probably point out that there’s so many avenues that you can open your eyes to – music publishing, record label management, being an artist, working in the live sector, working in sync, – there’s such a handful. There’s industry bodies, there’s so many opportunities out there, which I really opened my eyes to when I was at college.

And from there, I was just doing the crappy jobs like working the door and doing the cloakroom at gigs, and just really getting my face out there. I happened to meet the manager of a band [from that] and then I was a tour manager for a little bit – I don’t think I really qualified to be tour manager [at the time] but it it was definitely about learning on the job. it was really cool, I got to travel to all parts of the world, and it was a really cool experience. 

 

What was the most challenging aspect of first starting out in the industry? 

I think it was just overcoming that anxiety that I think you have when you’re surrounded by people who know a lot more than you – or that you think know a lot more than you. You can feel a bit sheepish sometimes, asking questions. And I think because I was a little older, I was maybe 20/21 when I was first getting into this, I was just thinking ‘it’s now or never’ (even though it wasn’t) but you’ve just got to have that confidence. And if you have a question, just ask. I think for a long time I was sort of like, oh man I can’t ask that person, they’ll think I’m dumb… But really you never experience anything like that, it was always that everyone was really up for helping. 

I’ve actually ended up speaking at Academy of Music and Sound classes, and reflect that onto the students there too – just don’t be afraid to ask questions. Its challenging getting your foot in the door, but definitely it’s important to believe in yourself. And there are gaps in the market, so start a company that fits that gap! I would recommend people do that, just being innovative and inquisitive – innovative and inquisitive! There you go [laughs]

 

Was your current job always something you wanted to do?

I found out about [music publishing] at college, and music publishing is basically just looking after songwriters and producers, and pitching tracks to labels… So not everyone that writes music is going to perform it, so those that are writing the tracks, I’m going to try and get those placed with labels or management companies or in advents. That really pricked my interest when I was at college, I did my own research on it… But up until that point I had no idea that job existed! It’s a sort of mythical area of the music industry that not a lot of people seem to delve into. But I thought it was really interesting!

In terms of the event side of things, I used to put on events and gigs myself a lot, so had a tiny bit of experience with that – nothing on the scale of a conference. But still, it goes back to having that ground knowledge of a lot of different areas. I think is really what the pertinent benefits are from going into music and studying music – you get a piece of every sector. Its a good time because you sort of find ‘your crowd’ as well – I hate that phrase actually [laughs] – but finding out what it is you want to do with your life. When people ask 14 and 16 year olds what they want to do with the rest of their life, they don’t know – and of course they don’t know! So I think going to college and finding that time where you can discover what you’re interested in… Whether that’s a sound engineer or a songwriter. That’s the time to find out.


What about your music education? How has that informed your skills and experience?

For sure! I went to Glasgow Kelvin College and one of my lecturers was in the band The Bluebells, which were a really big band in Scotland in the 80s. And he was really good at getting the best out of people in his class, getting people to come out of their shell and creating opportunities. Like, we went and saw Stereophonics at The Hyrdo in Glasgow and being there and physically witnessing what was happening… Those physical elements to the course where you weren’t just sitting and looking at a computer screen I found really valuable. I was able to talk to people and we were able to network.. And nobody likes networking! Anybody that says they like networking are lying! [laughs] But you just have to find your own way of dealing with it and making it comfortable for you. That was a good experience being at college, and sort of learning those tricks. And don’t always hard sell yourself – have an actual interest in the person you’re talking too. 

I did that course for 2 years, and actually moved down to London to complete a degree at the University of West London, but that fell through and I moved back to Glasgow and just stumbled into this job! So I was really, really fortunate. But definitely having that bit of paper that says you have a qualification in music helps, it’s really valuable in terms of getting your foot in the door and it just lets people know that you have a steady and ground knowledge of music and the music industry, so it’s really beneficial. 

 

Even networking through music education itself can be really helpful as well? 

And I know through the Glasgow (AMS) branch, they have a lot of guest speakers come through as well. So myself, but they also bring people from all over the UK, and it’s just about going up to that person at the end and saying ‘thanks for your time’ or making yourself memorable in some way, or just letting that person know, if you’re a manager or artist or whatever, just going up and telling them. And if you need to email them 6 months later, they’ll remember you asked the person who thanked them for their time.  Just little things like that, they can seem so menial, but they really are important.

What’s the most valuable piece of advice you’ve received throughout your career?

It’s quite hard to pick out one valuable bit of information… But I think just knowing that you’re doing what you’re passionate about. I think if you’re not passionate about it, maybe you should reconsider? I think I’ve always known that music is my passion and I feel like I’ve got a connection to music… I always sort of felt like I’d end up here. I don’t really believe in all that sort of stuff, but I think, just know that you’re following your passion. And know that it’s going to be hard working in the music industry. There’s quite a lot of people fighting for very few jobs – it can be that case in a lot of sectors – but you have to be committed and you have to be driven. I think that would be the takeaway quotes – driven and committed!

 

And finally, what advice would you give to current students starting out in the industry right now?

I think just spend as much time as you can learning… I think if I was to try and think of one positive thing that’s come out of the COVID thing – which obviously there isn’t much – but the opportunity for e-learning as improved, there’s lots of things going online. Following things like BPI which is a governmental body for UK music and they have lots of programmes available for free. And we have a conference obviously – shameless plug here! [laughs] – and we’ll have lots of events on throughout the day, so really take the opportunity to expand your knowledge! 

And in terms of employability, after this whole thing ends, particularly the live sector is decimated right now, but we’re all working together as a community and there’s lots of great campaigns to get involved in like #LetTheMusicPlay and #WeMakeEvents – even societal things like Pride and Black Lives Matter – music has had a huge impact on all those movements (and vice versa), so it’s still a really good time to get involved in music. Maybe not in the way you would hope to right now, but there’s still lots of things happening in society and with movements that hopefully once this is all over, will set you in good stead for getting a job – setting yourself apart from others applying for a position for instance. 

My best bit of advice would be to just be yourself, don’t try to be anyone else, and be committed to whatever it is you’re passionate about, if it’s events then be committed to that, if you’re passionate about being a [sound] engineer be committed to that! I know how hard it is to get your foot in the door, I would definitely just say get out there, don’t be afraid to email don’t be afraid to message on social media – whatever medium you see fit! And don’t be afraid!


Resonate Conference 2020 will be held virtually on 26 November. You can purchase tickets here.

Resonate is an annual music conference held in Glasgow’s east end. Now in its 4th year, we’ve built the event from humble beginnings and now is considered a staple in the Scottish music calendar [we think!].

This year we’re making the move online and hosting our event via Hopin. You can expect the same top quality panels, 1-2-1s, workshops, demonstrations and more all from the comfort of your home. Tickets are on sale now!

We’ve build our event upon 4 key pillars; collaboration, creativity, accessibility and development. These are key objectives that we try to apply to all the activities within the programme. We’ve worked with local venues and event spaces to open up our programme to accommodate technology workshops, one-one advice sessions, group activities, presentations and panel events. Although we won’t be able to utilise  those physical spaces for the same purposes this year we’re still as keen as ever to have a diverse range of learning and networking activities for all our virtual attendees.

 

Follow Resonate for updates:
@resonatescotland | Facebook | Twitter

 

_______

Words & Interview: Isobel Trott
Photos: © Resonate 2019


edinburgh hnc music fast track free scotland short courses online dates announced summer exeter study music degrees ams

Need experience fast? Our fast-track HNC gets you a qualification in just 7 months!

Want to stand out from the crowd? It’s not too late – find your edge and get a cut above the rest with our fast-track degree scheme in Edinburgh, and get a HNC in music in just 7 months! 

So many of us have lost out on gigs and opportunities this year, and while things are difficult, a music qualification might just be the edge you need to stand out when we come out the other side!

Musicians after something a little different from a music qualification look no further than our fast-track HNC scheme.  The partially SAAS funded HNC in Music (with AMS Edinburgh) is specifically designed to help musicians get ahead and give them an edge in a competitive industry, and could be the perfect opportunity for those musicians feeling a little lost this year. 

Through our fast-track scheme you can get a qualification in just 7 months, fast-tracking your way to the start of a HND starting in Autumn 2021 – your ticket to getting a full degree in just one third of the time.

With the sector facing some of its biggest ever challenges, this might just be the ideal time to expand your skill set, and develop your expertise. Because if not now… When?

Our entry-reqs are different too!

We understand everyone has different life experiences. At the Academy of Music and Sound, we look to recognizse potential and welcome everyone from different backgrounds. As such, if you do not have a Higher English or Music we will still accept your application and process.

If your application is accepted you will be asked to perform and speak to one of our members of staff during an interview and audition. Providing you are well-rehearsed and are passionately invested in your own learning and improvement you could very well be part of our musical community.

Our approach is different to many other educators – we will continue to have an open approach and increased inclusivity to our courses. If you’re talented and passionate about what you do, then you deserve to be recognised.

 

 

About the HNC in Music


The fast-track HNC is a 7 month course starting on 4 January 2021 right through to 6 August 2021.  

The HNC in music is designed by musicians, for musicians, and features modules such as Music Business, Recording Techniques, Music Theory, History and Stagecraft. 

 

HNC Course Details:
 

Duration:

Start date: 4 January 2021
End Date: 6 August 2021

Units of study: 

Music First Study: Instrument
Music Theory
Music Business
Music History
Music: Live Performance
Music: Stagecraft for Musicians
Music: Organising a Community-based Musical Activity
Music: Songwriting
Music: Recording Techniques
Graded Unit 1 

 

About the Academy of Music & Sound Edinburgh

As an independent and dynamic academy, we cover everything from contemporary rock and pop instruments, to composition, songwriting and back again. Oh… And did we mention we started the first Scottish hip-hop and rap pathway?

Over the years AMS has welcomed over 5000 students onto courses in popular music, production and music business courses over the years. In July 2019 we celebrated 25 years in music education – always changing and adapting to keep in-step with changes in the modern music industry, we’ve proudly established ourselves as leaders in independent music education. 

AMS alumni not only go on to become highly successful musicians but also educators, promoters, and even music therapists. We can help you explore the careers that best interests you.

 


Safety first…


It’s not been an easy year, thankfully we’ve adapted swiftly. This term, we’re minimising class sizes & contact time and we’ve gained more space for teaching at our centres.  Adapting courses thoroughly for online delivery, and because we’re an intimate & independent college, able to offer dedicated online one-on-one and live group sessions to all students.

 

Get yourself to an online open day….

Saturday November 7th & Saturday December 5th. 

Book now!


the scotsman kate lake under the radar artist of the week ams

We're the new sponsor of 'Artist of the Week in The Scotsman!

Our latest Artist of the Week in The Scotsman newspaper on Sunday is the classically trained pianist Kate E Lake!

We’re very pleased to announce that our Scotland division (made up of our Edinburgh and Glasgow teams) will be taking over and sponsoring the ‘Artist of the Week’ column in The Scotsman newspaper. The Scotsman is a renowned publication reporting on news since 1817, with a special focus on the arts and culture scene in Scotland. We’re thrilled to be supporting a column which puts front and centre young Scottish talent and emerging artists.

The latest feature, dubbed ‘Under the Radar’, focused on the incredible Kate E Lake. Kate is a professional pianist based in Scotland and will soon be releasing her debut EP ‘ROAMS’ of which she has worked with Royal Conservatoire alumus Gus Stirrat.

Kate E Lake has had an interesting musical journey which has taken her from wanting to be Elastica’s frontwoman Justine Frischmann, to travelling to Dublin and Paris to study classical piano and then a stint singing jazz standards upon her return to Glasgow.

However, it was when she discovered a love for singing folk songs at parties, that she decided to strike out as a recording artist in her own right. Citing influences including Agnes Obel, Nils Frahm, Julia Houlter, Eric Whitacre and Debussy her quality compositions have a strong cinematic appeal, but could also slot seamlessly into a Celtic Connections bill.”

You can read the full article on The Scotsman here.


hip hop matter ams uk blog black lives matter public enemy spike lee

What is hip-hop and why does it matter?

Want to study hip-hop? Apply for our HND in Music or our free short course (for Scotland residents only).

Our brand new Hip Hop and Rap HND pathway will kick off next academic year and we want to provide some important context ahead of time. In light of recent #BlackLivesMatter protests bringing to light racial inequalities, it feels vital to highlight hip-hop’s Black American roots. White audiences and society uses and commodifies, co-opts and even steals a Black culture a lot – and it is important we check ourselves wherever we can.

Students on the HND will also get a Hip-Hop Reading List alongside their primary course material, which outlines some great readings on the significance of hip-hop as Black pop culture – how it has been represented, received, and produced. The current Black Lives Matter protests evoke a familiar message that hip-hop has spoke since it began. For decades hip-hop has spoken truth to power and challenge the status-quo. Protest and resistance have been common elements of the music, evoking the fight for racial equality and communicating anger at socio-economic conditions that shaped the lives of many Black people. Today, not a lot has sadly changed and many of hip-hop’s messages are still incredibly relevant. 

Since it emerged in the Bronx in the 70s and 80s, Hip-hop has become hugely influential – mainstream music, a “cultural and artistic phenomenon” and a multibillion-dollar global industry. It’s important to understand how hip hop came about within the historical context of the African American experience but it is also important not to fall into common cultural misconceptions and associations of hip hop. It can be interesting to examine how representations of Blackness operate in American pop culture and vital when approaching the subject as an area of study.

We owe many popular music forms to the Black community. Rock and Roll, Techno, Jazz, Disco – you name it. Some of these genres have been subject to  ‘whitewashing’ throughout history, such as Elvis becoming known as the ‘King’ of Rock n’ Roll which was originally pioneered by African American musicians, or current fears that European electronic music is erasing its Black origins (read about the campaign called ‘Make Techno Black Again’). 

Hip-hop is slightly different. For the most part it’s very much still read as ‘black culture’ – even synonymous with black culture (which can be problematically essentialist). Hip-hop culture is a global culture – we use, enjoy, implement, and borrow from the culture in music, fashion and elsewhere. Hip-Hop was born in New York of Black, Latino and marginalised communities, and hip-hop in the mainstream developed to largely to be seen as Black. Developing an awareness of ‘hip-hop history’ can be important to understanding how the contemporary west treats and represents Blackness and how Black popular culture works in the mainstream.

Born in the Bronx, New York in the 1970s in African American and Latino urban neighbourhoods, hip-hop was a fusion of various cultural forces and influences. It emerged in a period of “urban renewal” for American cities, with a new kind of resegregation happening and white-flight to the suburbs; terms like inner city and underclass were reinventing America’s racial vocabulary. In this midst of what Professor Trica Rose calls the “post-civil rights era ghetto segregation”, a flourishing new youth culture emerged. “Hip Hop is an oppositional cultural realm rooted in the socio-political and historical experiences and consciousness of economically disadvantaged urban black youth of the late 20th century,” as Layli Phillps says.

Hip-hop emerged in part, as a reaction to the socio-economic conditions in Black and Brown neighbourhoods. The culture was broad and not just about the music; beatboxing, DJing, street art, graffiti, dancing, braids, hairstyles all emerged as part of hip-hop culture. ‘Hip hop’ generally refers to the overall culture, while ‘rap’ (or MCing) referred to the rhyme creation and lyricism, originating in the battle raps that would take place on the streets. 

Kickstarted by the likes of Grandmaster Flash, DJ Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa, music at first was largely party anthems, often played in block parties and in the underground scene (see the 1982 film Wild Style). “It was Herc who laid the groundwork for everything associated with Hip Hop today” says The Independent, “the Jamaican-born DJ would often speak over a rhythmic beat – known within the music genre as toasting, and at parties in his high-rise apartment, he would extend the beat of a record using two players, isolating the drum “breaks” by using a mixer to switch between the two – or as it’s more commonly know: scratching.”

The music was a product of its socio-economic conditions and it grew to actively express these too, giving it a political edge. Protest rap or conscious rap grew in the 80s and 90s with the likes of Public Enemy, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, NAS, Mos Def, and N.W.A. – and would often make reference to the Black Power movement of the 50s/60s. It was a reactionary response to mainstream culture – an oppositional force. In the 80s early gangsta rap also emerged, (N.W.A., Ice T, KRS One, Eazy E, Westside Connection) and often crossed over into the political or protest.

Rappers have been criticising the violence of the police and law enforcement on Black people, particularly Black men, since the emergence of political conscious rap in the 80s. Hip-hop reflected and responded to various racial inequalities such as the American Prison Industrial Complex, where Black men are disproportionately incarcerated (what Michelle Alexander calls quite convincingly the ‘New Jim Crow‘), white police brutality against Black bodies, and the socio-economic conditions of Black urban communities leading to factors like Black on Black crime. 

Once hip-hop entered the mainstream it became increasingly commoditised and increasingly consumed by white audiences. The ‘gangsta image’ was seized on in pop culture, and in this became a popular and essentialist way to view this generation of Black youth. 

Hip-hop has a lot of important things to say. But as the culture became commodified and popular to the masses, certain things – like references to violence, ‘Thug’ or ‘gangsta’ lifestyles, and even misogynistic lyrics – were heightened in order to sell more records. Problematically these were often taken as literal representations of Black life and Black people often too got seen as synonymous with hip-hop. Many have argued that there is a lot more to be taken from hip-hop than these base-level assumptions and stereotypes. 

“Many critics of hip hop tend to interpret lyrics literally as a direct reflection of the artist who performs them. They equate rappers with thugs, see rappers as a threat to the larger society, and then use this ‘causal analysis’ (that hip hop causes violence) to justify a variety of agendas: more police in black communities, more prisons to accommodate larger numbers of black and brown young people, and more censorship of expression. For these critics, hip hop is criminal propaganda. This literal approach, which extends beyond the individual to categorise an entire racial and class group, is rarely applied to violence-oriented mediums procured by whites,” says hip-hop scholar Tricia Rose.

Aspects of rap lyric and video content are continually criticised in the mainstream for its representation and treatment of women, although several critics (such as Tricia Rose and Imani Perry) have worked to reclaim black women’s positioning within the genre. There are many female participants in hip-hop culture – and have been since it first emerged. Studying the work of female artists can open up a space for more transgressive and nuanced interpretations of hip-hop culture, they say.

It is true that much of hip hop’s sexual politics (from male producers) involve demeaning representations of women, but the dialogue and interaction of the sexes in hip-hop is complex. Moreover, black female rappers have asserted a prominent space in hip hop and this deserves particular attention. From the start rappers like MC Lyte and Queen Latifah exploded onto the scene with empowering, assertive tracks like Ladies First and U.N.I.T.Y.

Conscious artists like Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu have been hugely acclaimed and work to celebrate Black womanhood, and even the ‘female Gangsta rappers’ like Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown arguably created some transgressive space for Black female performers in hip-hop. Overall several scholars have argued for a articulation fo women’s role in early hip-hop and for highlighting the oppositional and empowering stance many of them hold. 


In her book Black Noise, Tricia Rose explores rap’s sexual politics, looking at the ways black women rappers negotiate—either by resisting or unwittingly perpetuating—dominant sexual and racial narratives in American culture. She puts female rappers in dialogue with black male rappers, and argues that there is a conscious and race-specific negotiation of cultural terrain taking place. 

Literature by black female writers such as Hazel Carby, Angela Davis and bell hooks also speaks to the complexity of black female expression and specifically the black American female experience – Rose sees this complexity as operational in mainstream hip hop spheres, and argues black female rappers have a voice worth exploring critically.

Since hip-hop has become such a global entity, it’s produced some of the world’s biggest stars. Many prominent artists like Ice Cube, Queen Latifah, Jay Z, Kanye and Will Smith have become what we could call a ‘mogul’ often crossing over into other industries like fashion or Hollywood and creally creating a brand out of their star identity, becoming incredible successful business people . Other creators in hip-hop like Russell Simmons (Def Jam) have become known as hip-hop moguls – entrepreneurs who are understood as coming from the ‘hip hop generation’.

These producers emerged during the period in which hip-hop became mass commodified, which eventually coincided with a political context of Neoliberalism. America’s Neoliberalism also introduced the concept of a post-racial society (prominently in the US, but also mirrored in the UK) – reinforced and/or determined in America by the election of President Obama, the first Black president. Illusions of a post-racial society worked alongside successful Black figures to creative an illusion that the US was rid of racial injustice – systemic or otherwise. In fact, long-standing racial inequalities still exist and many of hip-hop’s original arguments are still very much relevant.

“Many academics have argued that hip-hop was ‘complexly determined by some of the worst social trends associated with neoliberalism: soaring inequality, extreme marketisation, mass criminalisation, and chronic unemployment.’ While many political rappers adopted oppositional stances to these trends, mainstream hip-hop culture often celebrated materialism and enterprise with all the gusto of individuals who have ‘made it’ against terrible odds” says hip-hop scholar Eithne Quinn.

Today, hip-hop still has a political edge, arguably continues a return to the consciousness and resistance of some early protest hip-hop, and a step away from the hyper-commodified, hyper-sexualised versions of the music in the 90s/00s. Hip-hop is and was more than a music form, and has an enduring and particular significance. It became the voice of a generation – a generation who now lead the way with the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

“The hip-hop-savvy radicalism of #BlackLivesMatter has liberated commercial rap from its default modern setting — the one that birthed the breezy millennial perception that “hip-hop” was a synonym for a consumer market where rowdy, rhyming negro gentleman callers and ballers sold vernacular song and dance to an adoringly vicarious and increasingly whiter public – a fair portion of whom are undeniably apathetic to race politics and the New Jim Crow, per Michelle Alexander’s groundbreaking study of present-day judicial abuses,” commented Rolling Stone in 2015.

There’s so much to unpack in hip-hop, it’s impossible to cover it all in a short article – be it whiteness in hip-hop, it’s sexual politics, prosecuting rap, a hip-hop education or hip-hop filmmaking, we hope this has provided a small start to doing just that. While hip-hop must not been seen as the ‘blueprint’ for ‘describing’ the Black community or all African American people collectively, however it can be important to understand the impact and production of hip-hop in these specifically racial terms, and connect it to it’s history – and the arguments hip-hop has been making about the treatment of African Americans and Black people in the U.S (and UK) for decades. 

This article was written by Isobel Trott, our social media editor. Isobel has an MA Degree from the University of Manchester where she specialised in hip-hop culture, African American representation and film. 

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Sources

From Black Power to Hip Hop: Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism – Patricia Hill Collins
Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional”: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America – Robin Kelley
Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop – Imani Perry
Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America – Tricia Rose
The Hip-hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip-Hop and Why It Matters – Tricia Rose
Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement– S. Craig Watkins
That’s the Joint! The Hip-Hop Studies Reader – Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal, ed
“Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap” – Jeffrey Ogbar
“Nuthin’ But A ‘G’ Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap– Eithne Quinn
“Occupy Wall Street, Racial Neoliberalism, and New York’s Hip-Hop Moguls” – Eithne Quinn
A Furious Kinship: Critical Race Theory and the Hip Hop Nation – Andre Douglas Pond Cummings
“Oppositional Consciousness within an Oppositional Realm: The Case of Feminism and Womanism in Rap and Hip Hop” – Layli Phillips, Kerri Reddick-Morgan, Dionne Patricia Stephens
Representing: Hip-Hop Culture and the Production of Black CinemaS. Craig Watkins,
The Spike Lee Reader – Paula Massood, ed.
Black Talent and Conglomerate Hollywood: Will Smith, Tyler Perry and the Continuing Significance of Race – Eithne Quinn (2013)
What is this ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture” – Stuart Hall
Reel to Real – bell hooks
Wild Style (1982 film, Dir Charlie Ahearn)