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Young Guru Joins USC Faculty This Fall

Posted on September 4th, 2013
by
Karen


Many fans of the hip-hop culture know Young Guru for his role in shaping the sounds of artists such as Kanye West, Eminem, and most notably, Jay Z. But what some don’t know is that Gimel ‘Young Guru’ Keaton is a renowned educator of the game as well. This fall, the Grammy-Nominated soundboard genius will take his talents to Thorton’s Contemporary Music Division at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles as an in-residence lecturer and developer for the new degree program in music production.  For more details about Guru’s role in the program, as well as his perspective on what the students can expect from his teachings this fall hit the jump.

While his new role at USC will undoubtedly be his biggest yet, Guru is no stranger to bringing the sounds and knowledge of the Hip-Hop culture to the world of academia. He has lectured at several institutions across the country such as Emory in Atlanta, Loyola in New Orleans, and New York University just to name a few. This time around, Keaton will have a more hands-on role in the development of a degree program in music production, while lecturing and working with students in the popular music, music technology, songwriting, electronic music, and the music industry.

Guru plans to show students that this is not just your average hip-hop class, but rather an expansion of the brand in which the culture can take you.

“I don’t believe you can consider yourself having an education in music and not having some type of business education,” says Guru.  “All of those things encompassed together is what makes someone ready to actually go out into the world and actually utilize their skill. It’s one thing to just sit down and make music, but at this point in history, there shouldn’t be any artist that’s not properly educated on publishing, what splits are and just how the industry works and how you get paid from it.”

After being crowned as the creator of the “Sound of New York,” Guru plans to incorporate the functions of what it takes to make a “hit record” by breaking down the affects and components of sound, which he feels is first and foremost in the process. Once you become a ‘practitioner of audio,’ you are then able to apply the concept both inside and outside of the music industry-applying audio training wherever you can.

“One of the greatest things my teachers did for me was to take my mind away from simply engineering and becoming a practitioner of audio, which means you think about audio in all situations — not just in the recorded music form.”

Though most of his lesson plan will be based and surrounded around musical production, Keaton wants to be sure that students know it is not just a “hip-hop based” line of coursework.

“It’s for any musical genre, whether or not you’re recording your gospel choir, your rock ‘n’ roll band or jazz band, or whether you’re an electronic music maker. All of it will delve into music production.”

The cool thing is that we can all be apart of this experience, by signing up to watch the livestream of Young Guru’s first lecture. To sign up click here.

[Shouts to LATimes]

 

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