From the idea to the Academy

The Red Bull Music Academy is taking place already for the ninth time this year. Read here who is behind the concept and which are the basic values which made the Academy what it is today.

Everything started in the middle of the nineties, when Red Bull Music Academy initiator, Many Ameri, met with a round of colleagues from music journalism and similar fields in order to give new momentum to the concepts of music workshops prevailing at that time, which had been to date usually primarily limited to the technical acquisition of Skills à la Scratchschool or the presentation of the newest DJ hardware, as well as to generally bring young musicians and DJs closer to their passion.

Oral History is the catchword and still applies in a discipline such as pop music, in which the printing of all-embracing annals does not seem possible, as an essential aspect for the illustration of its various strands, its connecting factors (in periods of music, which is strongly based on sampling) and traditions.

From the outset it was clear that, along with the producers just mentioned and any obligatory legends, particularly the ignored and forgotten greats of the music business, for example even Bernard Purdie, should also get a word in edgewise. In addition, the basic idea was to let the school progress around the whole world, if possible, and to let the local complexion of the respective cities be captured in order to let this flow back into the discussion.

This is how such a concept was founded, which was refined through the years, and which today represents the basis for everyday life at the Red Bull Music Academy. Thirty music devotees and music makers from all over the world are invited in each of the two terms to be a part of this small cosmos for two weeks.

The rules are simple: a mix-tape and/or some individual productions as well as a filled-out questionnaire are all that is required for someone to apply. Whoever finally actually boards the airplane to the academy, however, has not proven that he is a technically perfect Techno DJ or hip hop purist with the fattest beats, on the contrary, this shows rather more about someone’s diverse interest and that person’s openness to a subjective musical approach.

The fact that such is stipulated is illustrated by the range of the invited artists who were on board at last year’s edition in Seattle: from Minimal specialist, Mathew Jonson, to ?uestlove from The Roots, to House legend, Larry Heard, and then over to Drum’n’Bass Boy, DJ Zinc. These and other tutors not only let the participants take part in their experiences, opinions about the music business and production cords in the form of anecdote-rich lectures on the Academy afternoons, but here they can also put their money where their mouth is.

After all, music-making and the mutual work in studios, is the second focus of the RBMA. Specific workshops take place here, spontaneously and self-organized, where technical exchange of experience not only results by way of the studio organizers, but becomes the natural and self-dynamic agenda of each project member.

In these evening hours, when heads are wiggling behind a monitor, producers excitedly switch between the small studio rooms with samplers and headphones under their arms, a few doors down old LPs, only just purchased at the local flea market are pre-played to find their respective scratch capabilities, and in the large studio old heroes like Dennis Bovell, Arlo Guthrie and Bob Moog are called upon for the group jam with the youngsters, the Academy develops into an almost magical playground, where on the basis of interaction everything seems to be possible.

One can then hear the results as the musical effusions of two weeks of collaboration on the annual “Various Assets - Not For Sale” samplers, which replaces a typical one-sided frontal form of instruction with this idea of co-operation.

"In order to learn the pure technology, you can visit a college or read a book. What counts here is the social component, mutual music-making and dependence", opined Taz Arnold from SA-RA Creative Partners about the situation at the Academy, ex-participant Rui Pereira from Peru summarized it this way: "Everyone here is crazy about sharing knowledge."