IDK and No Label officially launched their collaborative new course No Label Academy at Harvard University, and students were treated to a slew of guest speakers who are considered trailblazers in the music industry.
This week, the students — who are primarily BIPOC — were present at Harvard’s campus and were visited by the likes of Virgil Abloh, Katonya Breaux, Mike Dean, Don Toliver, Charlie Heat, Terrence Louis “Punch” Henderson Jr. of TDE, Zane Lowe and Reggie Saunders, who touched on navigating the industry as creatives. The 10-day course concluded on Saturday and taught students the ins and outs of the music business in a brand new way as it focused on health, financial literacy, and creative innovation.
“I decided to create this program for the purpose of letting people in the BIPOC community know that a job in the arts is a lot more realistic than what society makes it seem these days,” IDK said in a previous statement. Brian K. Price, the program’s adviser, a clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School and the director of the Transactional Law Clinics, added, “Anyone aspiring to do music as a business must think like and excel as an entrepreneur. There must be a foundation of knowledge and how to apply that knowledge. Learning from experience is one way; learning from ‘the experienced’ is another.”
Elsewhere in music, Kanye West’s DONDA is projected to become his best-selling album since Yeezus.
