🎓Rapper joins Harvard to teach students about the Music Business
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Over the weekend, 29-year-old rapper Jason Aaron Mills, popularly known as ‘IDK’, an acronym for ‘Ignorantly Delivering Knowledge’, announced the launch of a course on Music Business, in partnership with Harvard University 🏫
Who’s IDK?
Born in London to American parents, IDK was raised in Maryland, USA where he had one of the most unconventional paths to becoming an artist in the hip-hop industry.
This included time in and out of jail, ever since he was a teenager, and releasing 2 studio albums, 7 mixtapes, and guest appearances on the albums of renowned hip-hop artists and rock bands such as ASAP Ferg and The Neighbourhood.
The best part?
He did this all by himself 🤯
With no record label or marketing team to build his brand, IDK began independently releasing music and marketing himself on social media, resulting in millions of streams online.
In fact, he has 2.9 Million monthly listeners on Spotify, and more than 700,000 followers on Instagram and Twitter combined, which has helped him connect with fans, and build an audience by himself, without having to rely on a Record Label.
We at Incentify are building a social network for music and would love to have your feedback on it. Check out our website for more now!
So what’s the Harvard course all about?
The 29-year-old has continued to find success since officially partnering with Warner Bros. for his 2019 debut album, Is He Real, and now he’s preparing to pass on his knowledge to the next generation of artists of color.
Later this month he’ll begin the 10-day IDK ‘No Label Academy’ program with Harvard University to teach students fundamental knowledge about the music business, from financial literacy to monetization and even mental health and fame.
Oh, and also, the tuition is 100% free ✅
Partners include brands such as Nike, Guess, Jordan and Converse, and the program takes place in person, starting next week 📅
Explaining why he is passionate about imparting this knowledge of the Music Business to students, IDK said:
The idea of music being a realistic job for a lot of people seems to be in the old way of thinking prior to social media-and so it seems impossible.
Social media has created a pipeline for us to make a living doing music.
Because it’s so new and people are just now understanding it, I feel like it’s important to teach the newer generations and some of the older generations how this could be a real sustainable career.
Check out him talking more about it in this promo video put out on the ‘ No Label Academy’ website 👇🏻
Who would’ve thought that a 29-year old rapper with no formal education could one day teach a course at one of the most prestigious universities in the world?
The Internet enables unlimited leverage 📈
Originally published at https://incentify.substack.com on August 16, 2021.
