Kerwin Young: Music, Publishing Rights and Hip-Hop Infrastructure
To say that Kerwin Young is a renaissance man would be an understatement. As we discussed in our last conversation two years ago (see here), Young is a composer, educator, producer and musician, who has worked with artists from Public Enemy to Ice Cube to the DC Youth Orchestra. He was also a Next Level artist/educator, and has now become Next Level’s Performing Rights Associate, a position whose very existence speaks to our commitment to economic empowerment of hip-hop musicians worldwide.
Performing Rights Organizations are industry groups that protect the rights of composers and publishers when their songs are used to generate profit. In addition to collecting royalties for recordings, they also license songs for various other purposes including use in films and commercials, as background music in stores, as sheet music, when lyrics are quoted in books, and in many other ways. The two major PROs in the United States are ASCAP and BMI, but there are others around the world, most prominently SESAC. Publishing rights are widely understood to be the backbone of the music industry, but many young artists are not versed in the ground level details of how to actually preserve their own rights through membership in a PRO.
Young’s goal is to provide hip-hop artists in different countries with detailed information about their options with regard to PROs, so that they can build an economic infrastructure that works to support musical endeavors in their particular social, cultural and economic context. The hope is that the artists may then use this infrastructure as a foundation to help others in their community as well.
Specifically, Young explains, his role is to educate each Next Level team about the options available for the specific community they are working with. “My role with Next Level as Performing Rights Associate is that I write a manual and present on that each year,” he explains. “And that manual includes the scope of international performing rights, the standings on various performing rights organizations globally, and how writers in various countries are affected in the way they can join that performing rights organization.”
“I gear it to whatever countries Next Level is going to in that year. So I’ll focus on those countries and whether that country has a PRO or not. And if they do, I’ll make a list of their pros and a list of their cons. You know, what they’re lacking or what the artists are unable to achieve via that PRO.”
As part of this process, Young considers everything from legal and artistic issues to basic practical hurdles that some artists may face. “You know, some people can’t afford to join a PRO because they don’t have an income that allows them to. Some countries - like Ethiopia, for example - don’t have a performing rights organization. So there’s certain countries where artists have to partner with a person in another country just to join a performing rights organization. So these are things I discuss.”
In the context of Next Level’s larger diplomatic mission, this work is important on both practical and symbolic levels. Beyond the obvious value of putting artists in a stronger economic position and thus giving them more of a platform to express their point of view, it also empowers them to make informed decisions about how that should be done. Simply stated, the goals are to build bridges to artists in other countries and to support them in expressing their own voice, not to tell them what to say or how to say it. An important part of connecting with artists in different cultures is to respect them as professionals with their own goals and visions.
And Young knows what it is like to have goals and visions as an artist. Aside from his work with Next Level, he is involved in many other impressive activities as a composer, musician and educator. “I just finished my 8th symphony,” he notes casually. “I’ve had a bunch of commissions to write chamber works. Right now, I’m writing a piece for the DC Youth Orchestra based on Lupita Nyong’o’s book Sulwe. That’ll be premiered late spring, early to mid-summer. I’m writing another piece for violin and harp. I’m mentoring composers who are in different graduate programs at music universities. And I’m working on an album. I also score small film projects just to stay busy so when the big gig comes, I’m ready to go. One other thing: I teach hip-hop at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I teach production and entrepreneurship. It’s called the Hip-Hop Institute.”
So all of that keeps me really busy.”